


The Ring

by SnowWhiteKnight



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Based on a film, F/M, Mentions of Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-06 21:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13419630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowWhiteKnight/pseuds/SnowWhiteKnight
Summary: The last thing you see before you die... is the Ring.





	1. The Pitch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AsbestosMouth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsbestosMouth/gifts).



> Totally meant to post this for Halloween, but horror is good all year round!

“Hey, be good,” Sandor warned his niece as she got out of the car.

Alyssa, the ever precocious love of his life, flipped him off with a grin. “Get bent, unca!” she shouted as she ran into her elementary school. The teachers monitoring the morning drop off whirled around as a collective to glare at him. It was bad enough that they thought he was a felon or other lowlife because of his scars, but now this?

He groaned. “For fuck’s sake, Alayna…” he muttered. He  _ knew _ it had been his younger sister that had taught Alyssa that. Not that any of these old biddies staring at him would believe him if he tried to explain. “I will have my revenge,  _ sister,” _ he muttered to himself as he pulled away from the curb.

**********

“So, now that you’ve all decided to grace us with your presence,” Davos drawled to his reporters, “I’ll hand out the assignments. Pod, get a suit and tie, you’re going to cover the big Stark Gala along with Brienne. Gossip and facts, it’ll be an interesting read. Brie, your contact is the Stark heir, Arya. She and her father are hosting the event. Boros, you get the high school football games. Trant, you’re doing a fluff piece on the Braavosi Meadows Home for Elderly Men, and don’t give me that look. You’re not allowed around any females after that last ‘incident’. You’re lucky you didn’t get fired. Ah, fun one for you, Clegane. Your proposed story idea has been approved, so just run with it as you see fit.” 

Davos tossed folders to each of them. As head of the White Harbor Newspaper, Davos was by far the easiest boss Sandor had ever had, and the one he respected the most.

“Ok, go out and have some-- who am I kidding… Just don't piss anyone off enough to sue us, ok?”

**********

“Officer Stark,” Sandor said, nodding at his police contact at the White Harbor PD. Captain Benjen Stark, one of the few good, honorable men still left on the force, was from an affluent family, but as the youngest child, he had decided to serve justice instead of lounging around on his family's estate. He wondered if Benjen’s family was related to the Starks Brienne was doing her article on.

“Clegane, what brings you here?” He greeted Sandor with a hug. They had known each other since Benjen was on foot patrol. He had risen through the ranks and now enjoyed a semi-comfortable position of authority. Sandor still called him “Officer” to tease him.

“Need some info on a few deaths from a few days ago. It would be…” he consulted his notes, “Joffrey Baratheon, Margaery Tyrell and Megga Tyrell.”

“Ah, I was wondering when you'd show up for those. Most of the ‘weird’ was kept out of the papers but you do tend to sniff out the facts.”

“They don’t call me Hound for nothing,” Sandor said. “So whadaya got?”

Benjen sighed. “Not a lot, unfortunately. Crime scene photos from each, all matching to the same perp, but no evidence pointing to anyone. There was one witness, an Elinor Tyrell, cousin to both Margaery and Megga, but she’s had a mental break and had to be put in the asylum. Kept going on and on about a girl on the tv. It’s like a damn ghost or grumpkin was the culprit.”

“Right, or possibly a White Walker?” They both laughed at that. Benjen took out a file and handed it over to Sandor. 

“You know the rules, don't publish anything before showing me,” Benjen reminded him before letting go of the file. 

**********

“So, basically, it looks like the kids were scared to death?” Brienne asked later. She held a special interest in the case since her boyfriend, Jaime, was the uncle to one of the kids. It had been at her insistence that he was looking into it. Jaime was refusing to talk about it, and wasn’t much help, but hadn’t forbid Brienne from asking Sandor. She wanted to help, but Sandor knew investigative reporting wasn’t her specialty. The most he was letting her do was give him information. 

“Yeah. And these weird water stains… definitely not them pissing themselves. Tell me I’m not imagining it, but are the kids all pointing towards the TVs?”

“It’s just like Tommen said…” Brienne said softly.

“Who said what?”

Brienne shook her head. “Nothing, it’s crazy.”

Sandor got up to get another beer, limping slightly. The weather was getting colder and his old injury tended to become more pronounced as summer became fall. “Brie, I’m the king of the crazy, out there, weird as fuck shit stories. If you can’t tell me, who can you tell?”

She laughed. “Ok, that’s fair. It’s just… I’m not quite sure I _believe_ it. Tommen is Joffrey’s younger brother, and he was the one that told me that Joff’s death wasn’t  _ natural.” _ She took a deep breath. “Apparently, he claims that Joff and the two girls were killed by a video tape.”

“A video tape? Like, a VHS? Who the fuck watches those anymore?” He sat back down, cracked open his bottle and took a swig. 

“I know, I was shocked. Tommen said that they didn’t even know what it was at first. They were at a cabin in the Kingswood Reserve, and when the owner told them they could rent video tapes for free, they decided to watch some for a laugh. One of them was a, and I’m quoting Tommen directly here, ‘a freaking scarefest of grossness’, end quote. It was apparently unlabeled, but there’s a red mark on it, like paint. Said it gave him the heebie jeebies just looking at it. He closed his eyes almost immediately and didn’t watch it. He also said that right after it was over, Joffrey, Margaery and Megga’s phones all rang at once. When they answered, a creepy voice whispered, ‘You will die in seven days.’ He didn’t think much of it until seven days later when they all died.”

“Interesting… Anything else?”

“Like I said, he didn’t see much, and Joffrey didn’t talk to him on a regular basis. The only reason he was with them in the first place was because the girls didn’t want to be alone with Joffrey. The only other thing he said was that Margaery told him that she was being hunted by the girl in the television.”

“That’s a new one…” Sandor said, looking down at the photos. 

“Yeah...and…” She trailed off. Something was weighing heavily on her mind.

“And?” he prompted.

“There’s this.” She pulled a binder out of her bag. It was covered in photos of girls, mostly one pretty brown haired girl. “This was Margaery’s. Tommen had it the day she died. He was holding it because she asked him to do her homework. Smart kid, but dumb as rocks when it comes to a pretty face. Anyway, he gave it to me because of what was in it.” She opened the binder. 

There were dozens upon dozens of pages pulled from fashion magazines. From what he understood, Margaery was studying fashion and business in college, so this was no surprise, but the weird part was that all the models’ faces had been blacked out by pen or marker. 

“There was a photo stub for the pictures taken that weekend, you know, from one of those pharmacy photo development centers. Tommen said that Margaery was old fashioned about photography. Used thirty-five millimeter film and everything. I picked up the photos and… it’s just really  _ weird.” _ She handed him a paper envelope stuffed with photographs. The first few were fairly normal. The kids were having fun, taking photos with the sign of the lodge they stayed at, photos of them hiking. The second to last photo was of them all standing in front of the cabin. Of the four kids, only Tommen looked normal. The other three’s faces were skewed, rendering them unrecognizable. “It’s not a filter,” Brienne said, practically reading his mind. “I checked. It was a standard camera she used.”

“Well, Alyssa’s staying with Alayna for tonight, so I can go check it out. This’ll be fun.”


	2. Beginning the Investigation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for Lalelilolu :) mwahahahahahaha....

“Well, hello, stranger,” the thin woman at the desk said. “I’m Merry Frey. Welcome to Twins Crossing Campgrounds.” She eyed his scars nervously, but smiled nonetheless.

“Hi,” Sandor said, giving her a small nod. “I have a reservation, under the name Hill.” It seemed prudent to not use his real name at the moment. 

“Oh, yes. Actually, you’re the only reservation we have at the moment. It’s the off season for us. Won’t pick up again until the snow starts to fall and everyone wants to come ski. Let’s see… you requested cabin eight?”

“That’s right. I heard there’s a great view in that area.”

“You did? From who?” she asked, completely perplexed. 

“A friend of a friend.” The less information he gave her, the better. “It was a while ago that he stayed here though.” Sandor didn’t think there was a good view from any part of the camping grounds. He had done his homework on the place. The campgrounds had been a flourishing business years ago, even buying up land around it to expand in the last two decades, but there had been a definite decline in visitors. Rumor also had it that the patriarch of the family was burning more money than was being brought in, plus the family was huge, with branches all over the place. His late sister-in-law had been a Frey, and he remembered her speaking about Old Walder. 

“Oh! Well, we’ve been in business for a very long time and… well, we’re not as well off as we used to be, but I am confident you will find your cabin quite comfortable.”

“Oh, well that’s… nice. I was told you have a video collection as well?” Sandor prompted. 

“Oh… yes…” She pointed behind him nervously. “Um… one moment.” She came out from behind the desk and picked up an unmarked tape. “This shouldn’t be there. My apologies.”

That caught his interest. Unmarked meant it could be the supposed death video. “Why? Sex tape?” he asked with a chuckle.

She turned incredibly red. “No! I mean… no… it’s just… it’s…a family tape, birthday party. I don’t know how it keeps ending up out here. Must be one of my cousins. Little pranksters.” She laughed nervously and held up the tape. A red paint mark was clearly visible on it. She put the tape under the counter. “I’ll have to scold them later. Well, Mr. Hill, here is your cabin key. Just follow the marked path, and your cabin will be about five miles down the road on the left. There is a wood chopping station in front of it. You don’t have to chop your own wood, unless you want to give it a go. It’s more decorative than anything, but we do try to keep the axe sharp for that. Have a nice stay!”

Sandor thought frantically, trying to figure out a way to get the tape. “Thanks… oh, you know, I was wondering, do you have any… trails in this area? Walking… trails?” He wasn’t much for camping or outdoorsmanship, but it sounded right.

Merry smiled broadly. “Of course! A few of the trails are closed off due to the season, but… actually, you know what? I think we have some maps left over from the last time we had a corporate group staying here. Just one moment.” She flitted to the back room. Sandor could hear her looking around for whatever maps of the campgrounds might be available, and quickly leaned over the counter, for once thanking his genetics for making him so damn tall. He was able to find the video cassette easily and stash it in his backpack before Merry returned. “Here we go. I can particularly recommend the Aerys Trail. The view here is… not that great, but take the Aerys Trail and you will see one of the most beautiful lakes in all of Westeros.”

Sandor nodded. “Thanks, I’ll try to do that.”

**********

Sandor found the cabin easily enough. It was clean, and the bed was decent, so he didn’t anticipate being unable to sleep because of that. Too short though, so his feet would definitely be hanging off the end. He had dealt with worse. 

There wasn’t much to the cabin, just the bedroom, a tiny kitchen, and a living room of sorts that also had the bathroom. “Should just call it a shower room,” he muttered to himself as he inspected it. The entire room was basically a shower, with no physical boundaries, a drain in the center of the room, and a toilet in the corner. He wasn’t sure he would fit in there without ducking his head down. 

The living room, if you could call it that, was really just part of the bedroom and sectioned off by a half wall. There was a love seat and a tv on an antiquated stand from the 1970s in the middle. Sandor ignored the love seat and knelt in front of the tv. It was one of those TV/VCR combos, something he hadn’t seen in a very long time. “Like a fucking time capsule.” He shook his head and inserted the video tape into the VCR. “Now what’s the deal with you…” 

He hit PLAY. Static filled the screen. Sandor waited for several seconds, then sighed. “Fuck… it’s a bust.” He sighed a second time and reached for the STOP button. The screen went black before he touched it, a glowing circle in the center and an eerie sound accompanying it, like a high pitched whine on a flute or recorder. The video switched back to static for a second, then bubbling liquid, grey in color except for a reddish tint on parts of it, but it didn’t look like blood. It reminded him more of Dornish Red Wine. Next, a chair in the middle of a bare room with more of that eerie sound from the circle image, also in tones of grey. The image flickered and there was a comb running through hair that completely engulfed the screen. A woman brushing her bright red hair as she looked into a mirror on the left side of the screen appeared next, though there was a weird squiggle around the mirror, possibly a glitch in the video feed. It struck him as odd, that bright red hair, since the rest of the image was in black and white. Then the mirror was on the other side of the screen, a boy was in front of it, but the reflection showed a girl with dark, long red hair covering her face, walking away from the mirror. Again, it struck him as odd.  _ Red… like blood… or fire. _

The image switched back to the woman, who was looking in the direction of the where the girl and boy would have been, a mournful look on her face. A quick image of something that looked like a zipper flashed on the screen. Then the camera was looking up at a window on the second story of what looked like a castle. A man was looking down from the window, pain etched on his face like the woman. The next scene was of a window clifftop, overlooking the sea. A fly was crawling on the image, but Sandor realized quickly that it was  _ in _ the video, not on the tv screen in real life. 

_ Fucking odd… _ he thought.  _ This entire thing is just fucking odd. _

He gagged at the next image of an open mouth with either intestines or sausage links being pulled out of it. Considering the stuff he had already seen, he was not about to bet on the sausage links. The next image was confusing, but it looked like something struggling to get out of a black trash bag. The camera shot was too close and the time on the screen was too short for him to be sure.

A crescent moon of the glowing ring appeared, but it quickly switched to a tree with leaves of fire. Then a finger pressing down on what he had previously thought was a zipper, but it was a iron nail. He flinched a little as the nail went through the pad of the finger and up into the fingernail, pushing it up and off the finger. The high pitched whine became more like a high pitched scream. Sandor was really glad he hadn’t eaten yet when the maggots filled the screen, squirming and wriggling. The image faded into bodies in water, also squirming and wriggling. A table appeared, with a glass of water on it and a chair tucked under it. It seemed relatively normal until a giant centipede crawled out from under the table and walked away. An open barn door was next, a three legged pup hobbling around, though the view of its head was obscured by the door. A closeup of an eye. A bird eye, he realized, a very scared bird. 

The crescent glowing ring was back, but it morphed into the original ring. Then a box of fingers cut off at the knuckle, a few of which twitched. Then the tree with the burning leaves again. He was fairly certain that there was a face in the black trash bag that appeared again.  _ Some of the images are repeating. _ He took note of those.

The red haired woman was there again. She turned and looked at the camera as she removed a comb from her hair. She was incredibly beautiful, but a cold sort of beauty. The second story of the castle was shown again, but no one was in the window this time. The next image was of the lone chair again, this time it was levitating upside down and spinning frantically. An extremely tall ladder leaning against a wall. Then birds. Dozens upon dozens of birds, dead in the middle of a field. 

The clifftop again, the red haired woman standing on the precipice. She looked at the camera, smiling sadly. The camera zoomed in on her extending her arms and falling from it. The next image was of the ladder falling, then the ring again, though there was something  _ final _ about it this time.

_ It’s nearly over, _ he thought. He wasn’t sure why he knew that, but it felt right.

The ladder fell, bouncing on the ground a little, then an indoor scene of a room, with what looked like a hole carved into the floor and a small stone barrier that partially encircled the hole, but it didn’t look like anything he had ever seen before. It was only on screen for a few seconds before it cut to static again.

Sandor let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “Fuck… that was intense.”

The shrill ring of the cabin telephone made him jump. His heart was beating irrationally fast as he went to answer it. “Hello?” he asked into the receiver.

_ “Seven days,” _ a female voice whispered, then the line went dead.


	3. Day 1, Thursday

A knock on his apartment door brought Sandor out of his revere. “Yeah, be there in a second,” he shouted, then turned to his niece. “Alyssa, I need to talk work with an associate. Stay in here, keep your headphones in, and I’ll take you out for pizza next weekend. Your favorite.”

“Hot Pie’s? And my favorite toppings?”

“You got it, pup. I’ll even get you your own pie so you won’t have to share.”

“Deal!” She plugged her earphones in and showed him that her music was playing. He gave her a nod and went to answer the door.

“So, what do you need my help with, old friend?” Roose Bolton asked. The man was not someone Sandor would ever call friend, but he was the best video analyst this side of the Trident. If anyone could figure out the tape, it was Roose.

“Come on in,” Sandor said. He checked to make sure Alyssa was still listening to her music, then lead Roose to his office. 

“So what’s this all about, Clegane?”

“What do you make of these?” he asked, handing the photo of the kids’ skewed faces over to Roose.

“Interesting filter. Not Snapchat’s best, mind you--”

“And if I told you it came from this?” Sandor held up the SLR camera.

“I’d call you a liar.”

“And you know how I am about lying,” Sandor said and sighed. “I assume you have a digital camera on you?” Roose pulled one out of his jacket pocket. “Figures. Take my photo.”

Roose shrugged and took the shot, then examined the picture. Sandor’s face was skewed just like the three kids in the photo. “Huh, will you look at that. So this is caused by that video you mentioned?”

Sandor held up the cassette. “Yeah, but… I’m hesitant to show this to you…” 

“Right… if I watch this video, I’ll die after a few days?” Roose asked, doubt in his voice.

“Seven days, actually… that’s how it goes.” Sandor felt stupid saying it, holding the video in his hands nervously. In the light of day, far removed from the dark, lonely atmosphere of the countryside, he found it hard to believe it was true. After the phone call, he had felt such an overwhelming sense of panic that he had run out of the cabin, just trying to take a breath. The sun had been setting over the hill, the huge tree at the crest highlighted by the orange rays, making the autumn leaves look like bloody fire. It had chilled him to the bone and he hadn’t stayed the night. When Merry called, he had told her that he had needed to leave extra early and had left the keys in the mailslot.

“Well, I’ll make sure to watch out then,” he said, taking the tape from Sandor and putting it in the VCR. It had taken three pawn shops for Sandor to find one, and now he was having second thoughts about this. Roose was an all around asshole, but he didn’t deserve to die for that, did he?

“You know, maybe this was a bad idea. You don’t have to--”

“Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts and superstitions, Clegane,” Roose scoffed. “I’m from the North and even I don’t believe in any of the crap that’s supposedly beyond the wall. Use logic. This video will kill me if you use it as a bludgeon or break apart the plastic and use the pieces to stab me, but it’s not going to kill me to just  _ watch _ it. I thought you were made of sterner stuff.” He pressed play on the VCR before Sandor could stop him.

Sighing, he went to the doorway. He could just barely see Alyssa, still sitting in the kitchen. He hoped that he was wrong, that the tape wouldn’t end up killing him, but if it did… How would she take it? Would she miss him? Mourn him? She was such a happy little girl, even if she was a jerk and regularly told him to piss off, or get bent. A flash of red caught his eye, making him blink several times. There was nothing there, just his niece.

Alyssa suddenly looked up at him and smiled broadly. “Don't worry, unca!!! I love you!!!” 

He barked a laugh and she went back to coloring. She always knew when a little positivity was needed. It was almost like she had a sixth sense. 

“Amateurs,” he heard Roose say with disgust. Sandor turned. “I've seen better attempts at gore horror by fifth graders.” Considering Roose’s second son, Sandor was not surprised. “I'd like to take this with me for further analysis but I doubt I'll be able to get much from it. At the very least, I can tell you who made it, where it came from, that sort of thing.”

“Ah, well, I need it as well, but I can make a copy and drop this one off to you tomorrow.”

“That will be fine.” Roose picked up his briefcase. “Just give me a call before coming over. Oh, by the way, your landline was ringing.” Sandor felt a chill go through him.

“You didn’t answer?”

“Of course not. Would have been rude, don’t you think? They left a message, though I didn’t hear it. Can’t believe you still have one of those. And an answering machine. You’re older than me, even if you’re younger. Good day, Clegane.”

Once Roose was gone, Sandor went over to the answering machine. Just as Roose had said, there was one unheard message on it. He deleted it without a second thought.

**********

His first task after breakfast was to make a copy of the tape. A visit to the media department of the newspaper took care of that, even if the clerk gave him suspicious glances. “It better not be porn, Clegane.”

“For fuck’s sake,  _ it’s not porn. It’s never porn. Get over it.” _ Jeyne Waters made a disgusted sniffing noise to indicate she did not believe him. “Fuck off, you judgemental asshole.” The slamming of the booth door covered the sound of her reaction.

Sandor sat in front of the little used VCR setup. He held only a slight worry that it wouldn’t work at all, considering the last time someone had signed in to use it had been more than two years ago. Beric had a fondness for old technology, however, and he probably maintained the damn thing himself. When the machine started up, he breathed a sigh of relief. Sandor zoned out a bit when the recording started. Under the bright fluorescents, the imagery didn’t seem as bad. The girl reflected in the mirror caught his eye, and he paused the recording for a moment. It was strange. Something about her called to him. He shook his head and continued the recording. The video changed to the older woman, but the girl’s reflection remained on the screen. 

_ What the… _ He stared at the monitor, then realized it wasn’t on the video. Sandor whirled around to look behind him, but there was nothing except a blank wall. He kept looking for several moments, his heart pounding loudly from fear. “Nothing…” he whispered. “There’s nothing there.” Maybe if he repeated it enough, he’d start to believe it.

Turning back to the monitors, he let out a shaky breath. That was when he noticed the time stamps on the video feed. They weren’t numbers, just jibberish, but they were the exact same on both tracks. 

“Fuck. Knew this machine wasn’t up to snuff,” he muttered, and started to set up a VCR to DVD copy, just to be on the safe side.

**********

“So, big story, huh? Anyone I know involved?” Alayna asked at dinner. 

“Unless you run with the upper crusts of society and forgot to tell me, I doubt it.” Sandor scooped a handful of shredded cheese onto the chalupas he was preparing. Alyssa was going through a “cultural” phase and wanted to try cuisines different from the local one. He didn't mind unless it was terribly expensive. 

“So what's your angle on it? Is it weird, spooky or gross?” Alayna hopped up onto the counter. “And any cute guys involved?”

“Bit of all three and no, no ‘cute’ guys. Done. Go call Alyssa and make sure she washes her hands. Brat was playing with the neighbor’s birds earlier and those things are infested with diseases.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Alayna rolled her eyes and went to go find their niece. 

Once they were all seated at the table, Alayna asked Alyssa about her day. “I made a new friend.”

“Oh? And who are they?” Alayna asked. Sandor was curious, too.

“I don't know her name, but she's suuuuuper pretty under all that gunk that makes her so scary looking.” She took a huge bite of her chalupa and continued talking, spitting little pieces all over the place. “She was following unca around.”

“She was?” he asked, getting more confused by the second. 

“Yeah and-- oh, wait, never mind. I forgot, I'm not supposed to know that.”

“Know what?”

Alyssa looked up at them wide eyed. “Hmm?”

“What are you not supposed to know?”

“Nothing. Can I have another chalupa? Please.” She held up her empty plate. 

“Not until you tell me what you're not supposed to know,” he demanded. Alyssa sighed melodramatically and looked around.

“Ok, fine, but don’t mention it again. She’ll get mad. She said she was sad that you would be seeing her in… six days? And that you seemed nice.”

Sandor felt the blood leave his face. “S-six… six days?” Alyssa nodded. “How… where did you meet this girl?”

“Here! When I came home after school, she was watching you do your research. I told her you didn’t like it and said she could come play with me instead.” Sandor vaguely recalled hearing Alyssa talking in the hallway. He had assumed it was to him and had called out to her to let her know he was busy at the moment and that there were snacks in the fridge. “She was really nice, but also really weird. She said I reminded her of her sister, but when I asked about her sister, she suddenly didn’t know what I was talking about.” 

“Is… Is she here right now?” Sandor asked, ignoring Alayna’s confusion. 

“No. She said she would be back, but she also said I’m not supposed to talk about her, so don’t mention it.  _ Ever. _ Ok?” Alyssa looked at him so sternly, he almost laughed despite the cold fear that had embraced him.

**********

“Sandy, what was Allie talking about?” Alayna asked when they were at his door. She was putting her jacket on before leaving. “Does this have to do with the story? The subject was here? You need to call the cops.”

He sighed. “Don’t think the cops can help if I didn’t even know she was here. They’ll just chalk it up to a little girl’s overactive imagination. Anyway, you’re picking her up tomorrow, right? And you’ll take her for the entire weekend?” 

“Yeah, yeah, you can sleep in all you want.”

**********

“Alyssa…” 

“Shhh… I’m listening to a story.” Sandor felt cold. Alyssa wasn’t listening to anything on her headphones, nor over speakers. The room was completely silent. “Oh, ok, tell me later then,” she said, talking to the air. She turned to Sandor. “Yes?”

“I… I just wanted to say… good night…” 

“Good night!” She smiled up at him so sweetly.

“Alyssa, if you… if you want… if you get scared for whatever reason, you can come sleep in my room, ok?”

“Ok, but I have a guardian who’s going to watch over me--” She stopped and looked back at the empty space of air, then back to him. “Actually, sure. I want to sleep in your room tonight.”

“O-Ok…” He held out his hand to her, and together they walked down the hall to his room.


	4. Day 2, Friday

“Byyyyyyeeeeeee, unca!!!!” he heard right before the apartment door slammed. It was Alayna’s turn to take Alyssa to school, and she was getting a ride home from her classmate’s mom in the afternoon. Sandor lay in bed, still groggy, and looked around. Alyssa had fallen asleep rather quickly the night before, but Sandor had lain awake for far too long, wondering if the ghost was still there, watching them. It did little to reassure him that the ghost was sad to have to kill him. Rules were rules, he supposed. Groaning, he got up and got ready to go about his day.

First thing on his list was to go see Roose. Not the best way to start his day, but it had to be done. Roose lived in what looked like a condemned building, nearly two hours from Sandor’s place, and was the sole tenant. There were two ways up to the loft, four flights of stairs or the rickety service elevator. The elevator was actually less nerve wracking than the stairs.

“You sure this is a copy?” Roose asked, taking the tape out of the VCR.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Made it myself. Why?”

“The numbers are all messed up.”

“Oh, yeah, noticed that too. Same problem is on the original. Must have copied over or something.” Sandor coughed. He hated coming to Roose’s place. It was always dank and cold. 

“That’s impossible. These numbers are the the signature of what did the recording. There’s no images or audio involved in it, it just tells us how it was created, so to have no numbers… it’s like being born without fingerprints. You get it?”

“Huh… yeah, I think so. Can’t even begin to explain why that would happen, except the machine is old as shit. I did make a DVD copy too.” Sandor got it out of his bag, but when they put it in the DVD player, the numbers were still scrambled. “Ok… weird and weirder.” 

“Fine, back to the original,” Roose said, sounding more and more irritated by the second. “Let’s take a closer look, frame by frame. There’s something I noticed the first time around.” They sat at Roose’s work station. “Ok, just fast forward a bit… bit more… just a bit… and stop. Ok, see this frame?” It was of the woman. “Ok, just advance a few… and see, when she steps back, there should be a camera right in the mirror, but there isn’t. Can’t explain that one. Ok, next…” Roose advanced the film a few more frames to the girl in the reflection. “This one is mind boggling too.”

Sandor stared at the girl. There was something about her, pulling him in. If he stared long enough, stared hard enough, it almost looked like she was turning her head to look right at hi--

“Clegane, do you see this?”

Sandor blinked, pulled from his trance. “See what?”

“Here, in the corner.” Roose squinted. “Let me try with the tracking…” He turned some dials and the picture shifted to the left.

“Whoa… did you see that?” Sandor asked.

“See what?” Roose looked up at the screen. “Whoa…” There was more picture as Roose messed with the tracking. “Uh, I can try to mess with the alignment heads… hold on…” He started pressing on one of the whirring bits. 

“Here, let me help,” Sandor said, adding his hand to the mix. “What is that… Is that…”

“Clegane, stop messing with it. You’re going to break it!”

“No, look, if I just--” 

_ Fzzt! _

The VCR popped and fizzled as the tv screen went completely dark.

“Shit… Roose, I’m sorry--” 

“Get out. I have to deal with this.”

“Is there anything I can--” 

“Just get out!!” Roose shouted. Sandor grabbed the tape and his things.

“What’s all the shouting about?” Ramsay asked, exiting the elevator just as Sandor got there.

“Nothing,” Sandor said. “Just pissed off Roose. Might want to steer clear for a bit.” 

Ramsay looked down the hall to where the continued shouting was coming from, and then got back into the elevator. “Didn't want to be here anyway…” he mumbled. 

**********

Sandor wasn't quite ready to go home, so he headed to the outdoor market on the outskirts of town. Alyssa loved to drag him to stuff like this, pleading with him to buy her this snack or that knickknack. He smiled at the thought. He always held out until they were about to leave and let her choose one thing within reason. Wandering around, he tried to see if anyone sold the pumpkin seeds his niece had become addicted to. 

“Life goes fast, doesn't it, sonny?”

Sandor turned to see an old woman looking at him from behind her table. “Sorry?” he asked. 

“You look tired from life. These eyes have seen many things and I know the mark of a man ready to rest. Come, sit with me. Tell Old Nan your troubles.” She patted the chair next to her. He hesitated for just a moment before joining her. “Let me guess, girl trouble?”

Sandor snorted. “Guess you could say that.”

“Well, first rule, the woman is always right. Second rule, she may be asking for help but you have to watch for the signals. Women, especially Northern women, are strong, but can have a hard time asking for help when they need it. This girl of yours? What's she like?”

Sandor shook his head. “Uh, don't really know. I barely… uh,  _ met _ her a few days ago. Only spoke on the phone. But she's… well, she’s on my mind constantly.”

“Ah, young love. Such a beautiful thing…”

“She's more likely to kill me than kiss me,” Sandor said. 

“Oh, one of those. Well, just ask yourself, why does she want to kill you?”

“Because she's crazy.” 

“Is she? I thought you didn't know her well? Anyone can seem crazy if you don't have enough information. My advice? Figure out what makes her want to kill you, then work from there, so she  _ doesn't  _ want to kill you anymore.”

Sandor had no answer for that. 


	5. Day 3, Saturday

Sandor waited patiently in the interview room. He had been given special permission thanks to Benjen to speak to Elinor “Ellie” Tyrell, cousin to Margaery and sister to Megga. The girl was a stark contrast to the photo in the police file. Her luscious chestnut brown locks were dull and greying. Her once porcelain skin was sallow, almost waxen. But it was her eyes that he noticed the most. _Hollow. Like her very soul has been taken from her,_ he thought. She was staring into space, seeing nothing of what was around her.

“Ellie,” he said as gently as he could manage. “Do you know why I’m here?”

The girl stared at the wall behind him. “Margie… Megga…” she said in a near whisper.

“That’s right. You were there when they died.” No response. Sandor cleared his throat. “Can you tell me what happened? What you remember?”

Still no response. Sandor felt his panic rising. _Why won’t she answer??_

“She told you… She told you about a videotape, didn’t she? An old relic, a film they watched just for shits and giggles?” Silence. “Ellie, how did she die?” The girl blinked. He pressed on, and reached out to touch her hands. _“Please,_ Ellie. Tell me how she died. I need to know.”

“And you will,” Ellie said, looking at him for the first time. “She will show you.” He was startled by the fact that she did not flinch at the sight of him, but then remembered she had seen her cousin and sister die together. _There must be little that makes her flinch now,_ he thought grimly.

“Who, Ellie? Who will show me?” he asked.

“The girl in the reflection,” she murmured, and gently pulled his hand from hers, turning it over. “Four days,” she said.

**********

“Home VCRs will give you a tracking window but they won’t let you stretch it, and honestly, there’s not really a point to it unless you’re talking restoration. Archivists come in here with super old tapes, like from the dawn of the VCR age, the tracks are completely shot to hell, the servos can’t line them up for shit, _but,_ Big Betsy here is a fucking wardog. Totally and _completely_ analog, she’ll read to the very edge of your tape or double your money back,” Ramsay said, guiding Sandor to the behemoth of a machine. The damn thing took up a room as big as the hallway in his apartment, which was saying something. “Just… don’t force her or she’ll get pissy with you. And then I’ll get pissy with you. And you don’t want me getting pissy with you.” Ramsay’s eyes gleamed with a violent light.

“Right… I’ll keep that in mind.”

Ramsay brightened at that. “Ok, so here’s the tracking, the monitor, the printer, should you need it.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “So! What are we watching? Home movies? Oh, please tell me it’s of your time as a death machine in the army.”

“No, you psycho hobbit. I was special forces, not a ‘death machine’.” Sandor glared at the shorter man who was now pouting and possibly scheming Sandor’s demise for calling him short. “Besides… I’d… I’d _really_ rather watch this by myself.”

Ramsay studied him, the gears in his head turning. “It’s porn, isn’t it.”

“For fuck’s sake…” Sandor rubbed his hands over his face.

Ramsay laughed, which was possibly scarier than an angry Ramsay. “Hah, just kidding. It’s that death tape, right?” He grinned manically as Sandor stared at him. “Dad mentioned it. Thinks you’re a loon for believing it. However, I’m more inclined to be safe rather than sorry. I may court death on a regular basis, but even I have enough sense to not watch something that guarantees death after a week. Just let me know when you’re done and use this button and the intercom if you need to call for help.” Ramsay pointed at a large red button next to a speaker.

Once he was alone, Sandor took a deep breath and put the tape in the machine. The now familiar eerie music didn’t quite hold the same creepiness it once had, and he went through the scenes one by one, pausing to print out a few stills from the video. “Ok…” he said to himself, once he got to the cliff scene. “Just take it slow…” He turned the dial on the machine. Big Betsy groaned and strained as he pushed her to the edge of the tape. “Come on… Come on… I know there’s something there.” A lighthouse came into view. “Fuck yeah.” He hit the PRINT button just as Big Betsy reached the highest pitch in her whine and the screen went out. “Shit… Ramsay’s going to kill me…” He sighed heavily, and pressed the intercom button. “Hey… can I get some help? Not sure what I did…”

No response. Sandor figured he was on his own for the moment, and started pressing buttons. He felt a coldness above his hand, invisible fingers caressing his skin sending shivers down his arm, and the machine started up again, the video rewinding quickly. He punched more buttons, stopping the tape and replaying it. It stopped on its own, on the girl reflected in the mirror instead of the boy standing in front of it. Sandor advanced the video frame by frame, watching her as she glided away. _What is it about her?_ Stopping on the last frame of the scene, he stared at her about to disappear into the darkness. She looked so… _lost._ He couldn’t say why he felt that, or why he put his hand up to the screen, but he wanted to pull her from that darkness, bring her into the light. The video twitched, despite being paused, and she began to advance towards him--

“Everything ok?”

Sandor turned to see Ramsay standing there.

“Oh… uh… you got a little… you’re bleeding from your nose, man,” Ramsay said, frowning. Sandor wondered if he was frowning because of the sight or because he hadn’t caused it. It was hard to tell with Ramsay sometimes.

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and sure enough, there was blood. “Oh, thanks… I think. Got what I need,” he said, ripping the printouts from the machine.


	6. Day 4, Sunday

“Alright, this is everything we have on lighthouses in Westeros,” the young man said, plunking down books onto a pile that was nearly as tall as Sandor.

“Fuck… that’s a lot of lighthouses to look through.” At this rate, he’d never get through them before his seven days were up.

“Oh, is there a specific one you’re looking for?”

“Yeah… hold on…” Sandor dug the photo out of his files. “This one.”

“Let’s take a look.” The young man, pudgy and apparently near sighted, squinted at the photo. “Well, I can narrow it down for you. That style of lighthouse is only found in the northern area. Still a lot of ground to cover, but I can tell you it’s likely in these books.” The man took away more than half of the pile. “See? Much more manageable. I’d offer to help you look, lighthouses are quite fascinating, but I’m supposed to do my rounds now.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sandor rasped. “And… thanks… uh…”

“Samwell Tarly. You can call me Sam. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

**********

It took hours. The sun had risen to its peak by the time he found the right lighthouse, and he had almost missed it. It was a small blurb, almost a footnote compared to the other lighthouses, which was amazing to Sandor, considering the fact that it was the only lighthouse that far from sea.

“The Winterfell Lighthouse, known as the Warden of the North after the great Stark ancestry, it is used to guide not ships, but people lost in the plains of the North. Huh… Interesting.” He had to get Sam’s help to find out more. Sam gave him another book, this one a general history book of the North, written by Brandon “The Librarian” Stark.

According to Stark, the lighthouse was built when an influx of people from beyond the Wall started to immigrate south, before the time of cars and well maintained roads. The Starks, an old and powerful family even at that time, were regarded as Kings and Queens. Unlike the southron royalty, they cared more for their people than their own welfare and would do what they could to help the smallfolk. The Wildlings were dying on the journey south, often losing their way in the dark, wide expanses of land. To help them, the Starks built the lighthouse in their seat, a castle called Winterfell. It saved hundreds of thousands of Wildlings, but was mostly just a tourist attraction nowadays.

Sandor made copies of the relevant information before leaving the library.

**********

Not wanting to deal with nosy busybodies, mostly Trant and Boros, Sandor holed himself up in the newroom archives to research Winterfell and its connection to the video tape. It didn’t take him long to find out that the latest Stark brood was just as generous as their predecessors. Brienne’s article was in the lot, describing them as philanthropic heroes. There was also a lot of tragedy. Eddard “Ned” Stark became the head of his household when his father and older brother burned to death in an auto accident more than two decades ago. He married his high school sweetheart, Catelyn Tully, and they had five children, but Catelyn and the two eldest children, Robb and Sansa, died, leaving Arya Stark as Ned’s heir. The other two children, Brandon and Rickon, named after the deceased brother and father of Ned, were well on their way to becoming promising members of society. Brandon was on a fast pace in the military, and Rickon was a rockstar in the world of academia.

He clicked on a link that took him to the Stark Family website. The family was so well known and affluent, that it didn’t surprise him that they had a website dedicated to their genealogy. He started with the current members, Ned, Arya, Brandon, or “Bran” as the website said, and Rickon. Not much there, though they looked more familiar to Sandor than he expected.

Next was the deceased members of the family. After scrolling through fifty Brandon Starks, Sandor was starting to see why so many Starks had nicknames. Brandon “The Arrogant” was Ned’s brother, while Brandon “The Librarian” was from two generations before.

He finally found Catelyn, and saw that she was who he had suspected her to be, the woman in the video. It made sense why the two younger Stark boys looked familiar. They took after their mother. He hesitated on clicking on the link to Sansa Stark’s bio, but cursed himself for being a wimp about it. _She’s just a dead girl,_ he growled at himself mentally, and then kicked himself for being an idiot. There was little on Sansa’s bio page, mostly just her name, date of birth, and date of death. No pictures. It was the same for Robb. Sandor found it curious that they had been born on the same day, but in different years, and had also died on the same day, though there was no mention of the cause of death. _They were young when they died,_ he thought. _Robb was only eighteen, and Sansa was seventeen. If they had lived, they would be thirty and twenty-nine, respectively. She was only twelve years younger than me. I was… twenty-nine when she died…_ He was saddened by that thought. That year had been a particularly shit year for him, had ended in an honorable discharge though he knew his superiors had been pushing for a dishonorable one. Still, it felt like it paled in comparison to what the Stark kids had gone through.

Sandor went back to the main family page. There was just something about Ned and Arya that was bugging him. At the bottom of the page, he noticed a small link, _Extended Family._ Not having anything to lose, he clicked on it, and was surprised to see his friend, Benjen, and Benjen’s nomadic sister, Lyanna. _No wonder! Ned and Benjen look so similar, and Arya is practically the spitting image of Lyanna, just younger._

Having solved that mystery, he turned to searching the news related to the Starks, specifically of Catelyn Tully-Stark. She was an avid protector of less fortunate children, running after school and outreach programs to help kids stay out of trouble and get ahead in life. She also spearheaded many Stark historical projects, like the restoration of the Winterfell Lighthouse. There was little mentioned about her first two children, but plenty on the other three.

**********

“So you’re not just a Stark, you’re one of the famous Starks.”

Benjen looked up at him sheepishly. “You found out?”

Sandor closed the door to the office and took a seat at Benjen’s desk. “It came up in relation to the case.”

“What? How?”

Sandor sighed, and handed over his notes. “What can you tell me about your niece, Sansa Stark?”

Benjen went pale. “S-Sansa? What… How did you find out about her?”

Sandor’s eyes narrowed. “I think she’s connected to these murders. Now, what can you tell me about her?”

“The murders? Sansa? She was always a sweet girl… Well, she was until…” Benjen sighed. “It’s a long, complicated story.”

“I’ve got time.” He had already told his sister he’d be late. Pulling out his notepad, he said, “Just tell me what you know.”

Benjen got up and started making coffee. “This is… It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of Catelyn, Robb and Sansa. Since I’ve _allowed_ myself to think of them. The thing about the Starks is… we’re supposedly descended from the First Men.”

“I read that in the Stark Family History.”

Benjen nodded. “We’re also supposed to be descended from the Children of the Forest.”

“The fairy creatures?” Sandor asked, frowning.

“Yeah. The story goes, when the First Men went north, many of them died because they weren’t able to withstand the colder climate. The heartier ones did what they had to, and one in particular made a deal with the Children. A blood pact. He became the first Stark, because of his nature, and he was a hybrid of man and Child. It is said that the Stark bloodline is still rich with magic, that Starks are capable of greensight, warging, and other abilities no mortal would normally possess, and honestly? I believe it.”

“Ok… what’s this got to do with Sansa?”

Benjen gave him an odd look. “Well, _everything._ It was a miracle that Robb and Sansa were born, because Cat’s pregnancies with them had been so hard. We all thought it was funny that the two children had been born exactly a year apart, but no one thought anything of it at the time. My other niece and nephews were much easier for Cat to bear. Robb and Sansa… maybe it was because they shared a birthday, or because they were so close in age, but people often thought they were twins. I mean, they certainly acted like it. They even had their own language. It was cute. They were best friends, shared everything, though their personalities were like night and day. Robb was this impulsive little thing, brash and quick to make decisions. Sansa was slow to decide, always taking everything into consideration. She was the sweetest person you could ever meet. A little lady.”

“Sound idyllic.”

“It was. Ned was happy, Cat was happy… Then… things got a bit strange.” The coffee was done, and Benjen poured a cup for himself and Sandor.

“How so?”

“Little things. Sansa began to know things she shouldn’t have been able to know. Robb would be in a room, and you looked away for a second, and suddenly, something had moved when it shouldn’t have. It was odd, but nothing dangerous. Cat did not agree. She never really believed in the paranormal abilities the Starks were said to have. Thought it was nonsense. She had a friend, a psychiatrist, who specialized in the abnormal and ran an asylum to study people with ‘gifts’. She took the children to him when they were just ten and nine, not long after Rickon, the youngest, was born.” Benjen took a long sip of his coffee. “I don’t know how he convinced her, but she left the children in his care.”

“Wait, what?”

“That’s how all of us reacted. Ned wanted to go get them, but Cat was adamant. She said she could hear Sansa in her head, could see Robb when he shouldn’t be anywhere near her. But it only got worse. From what I could tell, the children were calling for her, wanting her to come get them, but Cat just thought she was going crazy. She ended up joining them in the asylum a few months later, though as far as I know, she refused to actually see them.”

“Shit… must have been rough. Why didn’t your brother go get them? Weren’t they calling to him as well?”

Benjen shook his head. “They only called to Cat. And he tried. But Cat had signed a legal document, giving Dr. Baelish full custody of the children and of her. We tried to contest it, and it should have been thrown out since Ned hadn’t agreed to it, but the asylum had some powerful lawyers. They tied it up in the courts for years. Ned couldn’t even see his children or his wife. I tried using my connections to help, but it was like banging against a brick wall.”

Sandor felt a weight on his chest, like a hand pressing on his heart. “But what happened to them? I read that they all died on the same day, but there was no other details.”

“Mhmm. That was on purpose. I didn’t agree with it, but Ned didn’t want to sully the names of Catelyn or the children. This next part… Dr. Baelish came to us and told us that Cat had died, and that the children had as well. Cat had been deteriorating, and she asked to see the children. Cat… she… Baelish said she killed them. Suffocated Robb and Sansa, and then killed herself.” Benjen shook his head. “It had been so long since I had seen any of them, really _knew_ Cat, I didn’t know what to believe, but my first thought was that it didn’t sound like her.”

Sandor didn’t know why he knew, but every fiber of his being said that the story Dr. Baelish had told the Starks was completely fabricated.


	7. Day 5, Monday

“Hey, Alayna, I’ve got a favor to ask.”

_“Please tell me it’s a hook up. You are way too tense, man.”_

Sandor rolled his eyes at the phone. “Fuck no. Besides, all your friends hate me.”

_“They don’t hate you… completely…”_

He coughed to clear his throat. It didn't really help. “Sure, whatever. I'm sure the hate sex would be great, but I'm not interested. Anyway, I need you to take Alyssa for a few days. I hate doing this, but I have to go out of town for my story and--” He coughed again, the dry, clogged feeling in his throat was growing stronger by the second. “Sorry, hold on.” He set the phone down, and tried to clear his throat.

 _“Sandy? You ok?”_ he heard from the receiver, but he couldn’t answer her.

It felt like there was something in his mouth, so he reached in, still coughing, and pulled it out. And kept pulling. A long, thin cord had somehow gotten lodged in his throat. He kept pulling until finally the end came out, a patch for a monitoring device. He flung it to the floor, feeling queasy.

“Alayna, you still there?” he asked when he picked up the phone, but he only heard static in return, and then felt something wet. Pulling it away from his ear, he saw water beginning to ooze from the speaker.

Another noise caught his attention. Slowly, he walked down the hall of the apartment to Alyssa’s room. “Alyssa…?” he called out. Nothing. “Pup? Everything ok in there?” There was a light coming from under his niece’s door. He could hear his heart beating in his ears as he reached for the door, pushing it open. Her room was empty, completely bare, except for the tv filled with static, and a redhead girl sitting in the middle of the room, a puddle surrounding her.

“Sansa.”

She turned, ever so slightly. She was pleased that he called her by her name, he was certain of that, though he didn't know why.

“Where's Alyssa? Where's my niece?”

The fact that he was asking about Alyssa pleased her as well, and he knew that his niece was safe.

“Why are you here? What do you want?”

Sansa stood up. He could see her reflection in the window, and noticed that her hair covered her face still, but he could just make out some of her facial features through the curtain of dark red locks. A pert nose, smooth but death grey skin. She would be considered beautiful if she wasn't dead.

 _Justice._ Her lips did not move, but he could hear her clearly.

“Justice? For who?”

_Revenge._

“On the ones who locked you up?”

_Death._

“Whose? Yours?”

_They killed us. Mother… Robb… Both gone... I've been alone for so long now..._

“I don't understand, Sansa…” He wanted to. He wanted to help her. “Who killed you?”

He saw her falter in the reflection from the window. _I… I cannot say. My memory is jumbled. So much does not make sense._ Turning to him, her hair shifted and he could see her eyes looking at him like two bright blue beacons. _You are a good man. You should not have watched._

“I'm not. I've done things, terrible things… I deserve a terrible end.”

_You are mistaken. The bad things were done for the greater good. I have seen it. I can see many things. You do not deserve this curse. You were not the intended. I want to release you, but I am bound by the curse’s power._

“What can you tell me of it? Who cast this curse? That's how it works, right? Someone has to cast it? Maybe they can--”

_I cast it. Unknowingly. I did not understand my power. I have learned since then, but it is too much for me to break. It was cast in a moment of anguish. I can control parts of it, like right now, but not who I kill. The curse controls that, and I am compelled to complete it. I can resist, but they end up dead regardless, worse than if I did it. Many have been killed by it, but not the ones who it is meant for._

“Oh…" He thought for a second. "So... what was that, back in the kitchen, that I had to suffer through? The monitor cord thing?”

He had never even suspected that a ghost could blush. It made her look a bit more human. _I am sorry for that. Truly. That is... It is something everyone has to go through. I cannot control that part. I am surprised I am able to talk to you like this. Usually, I just stand menacingly in the dream, until the person wakes up in a cold sweat or screaming._

He thought about what else he could ask. “How many? How many have died because they watched the video?”

 _I do not know the exact number. Too many… Never the right ones, sometimes innocent ones._ She seemed sad at that. _The last ones, the boy and the two girls… the boy was not a good person. The girls… they were not innocent, but they were not deserving of this. They…the people who watch the video, they suffered more when I do not kill them myself. There is another force at work. Part of the curse. I kill them as a mercy, so that they do not suffer as I did, unless they are truly horrible people, unless they do not deserve mercy. I promise a quick and painless death, but still, it is terrifying what they must go through. If I could undo the curse, I would. So much death… I was a good girl, once… Never hurt a fly… Things changed, but not for the better…_

“How are you here? How are you able to speak to me?”

 _I am not “here” for you are not “here”.  As to the how... I am not sure. As I said, I usually cannot speak to my... my victims..._  She looked sadder, if that were possible. _I feel... stronger... than usual. I cannot explain it._

"Why am I able to see you more now?"

 _Your time is getting nearer so the curse is wrapping more closely around you. You will see me even more, though as I said, you are different. You have seen me since the beginning, which is very odd. Your niece, Allie..._  Sansa smiled, an oddly warm smile. _She is a good girl. I like her very much. She is different, too. She can see me, really see me, despite not watching the video. Your bloodline... I think that--_ She stopped, and looked off into the distance. _No… NO!_ She turned to him. _You must wake up!! You must go back!! Stop her!! STOP HER!!_

“What? Stop who? I don't--”

She grabbed his arm and his mind was flooded with images, images of a young Sansa being strapped into a chair and connected to a monitoring device, images of her being forced to use her powers until her nose and ears bled, images of her growing up, of being lonely, of crying herself to sleep, of wanting her mother, her father, her brothers, and her sister. Of wanting to go home. _Wake up!! Stop her!!_ It was too much, too suddenly, and Sandor sat up in bed to escape the pain of Sansa’s emotions.

The clock next to his bed said it was 4:39am. He could still feel her presence. _Stop her_ she had said, but who? There was no one--

A sound came from down the hall. _Stop her!!_

“Alyssa… Alyssa!!!” Sandor jumped out of bed, and ran to the living room, just in time to see the last scene of the tape play in the tv. “Fuck!” He grabbed Alyssa, pulling her away from the tv. “Why?! Why did you watch that?!”

Her eyes were large with fear. “I… I couldn't sleep… and she wasn't there… she was with you… I knew she was connected to it… she told me she wasn't, that I shouldn't watch it, but I _knew,_ and… I just wanted to be with her like you are…” Her lower lip quivered. “You're going to go away… and leave me… just like mommy and daddy did… I want to go with you… I want to be with you… and her… She’s nice to me… Like I always thought a big sister would be…” She sniffled. “You’re like my big brother, and… and… she’d be good for you… if she wasn’t a ghost…”

Sandor's anger dissolved as her tears began to fall and he enveloped her in a hug. “Alyssa…” He didn't know what to tell her. He didn't know how to fix his own situation, let alone hers.

The shrill ring of the phone cut through the silence.

**********

 _“Clegane, I have some actual paying customers to take care of. Ramsay will be helping you from now on,”_ Roose said over the phone. Sandor had waited until Alyssa went to school to call him. _“Not that I don’t appreciate you coming to me, but… well, you know how it goes.”_

“Yeah, sure. Tell him I’ll call him later today, probably the afternoon or evening.”

Sandor rubbed his face. He was tired, but there was still so much to do. He had a plan, though he wasn't sure if it would work, and just in case it didn't, he wanted to make sure his financials and all the legal stuff was taken care of. It took most of the day to finalize everything, and thankfully, he had done a good chunk of the work already when Alyssa had first come to live with him. His brother and sister-in-law’s deaths had been a wake up call.

The last thing to do was to take Alyssa to Alayna's place, and hope that if he couldn't save himself, that he could at least save her.


	8. Day 6, Tuesday

“It’s… It’s just for a few days,” Sandor said. He hated lying to his sister, but there was no way he could tell her the truth. He looked down at Alyssa, who was kicking her feet at the door stop. Kneeling down, he said to her, “You be good, ok? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Promise?”

“I promise I’ll try my best, pup,” he whispered as he hugged her. “I want to promise that I’ll come back, but… things aren’t looking so good.”

“And you never make a promise you can’t keep,” she replied. She pushed him away and wiped her eyes. “Ok, I’ll be good. I want a kiss before you go.” Sandor kissed her cheek, but she stayed in the kiss receiving position for a few seconds more. There was no doubt in his mind that she was waiting for one from Sansa as well. He was startled when he saw a faint image of Sansa kneeling to kiss Alyssa on the cheek, almost like a trick of the eye. “Take care of him.” She wasn’t looking at him, she was looking at Sansa. Alayna was confused, but Sandor wasn't about to explain it. Satisfied with Sansa’s answer, Alyssa gave him a nod and marched off to the guest room.

**********

“So, this Dr. Baelish was lying and you know this… how?” Ramsay asked him. He was driving as Sandor poured over his notes.

“She told me. Sort of. We were interrupted in our conversation, and I haven’t been able to actually talk to her since. I don’t think there was really much else for her to say. Her memory from the end of her life was jumbled.”

“Right… the conversation you had in a dream,” Ramsay said, shaking his head. “Seems like a stretch. What if it was, oh, I don't know, _just_ a dream?”

He pulled back his sleeve to show Ramsay the handprint that was burned into his skin. “She did this when she woke me up to try and stop my niece from watching the death tape. I find that pretty conclusive. Besides, I can see her. She’s right in front of you, her hands poking at your ears.”

Ramsay raised an eyebrow and waved his arms around, going right through Sansa. She jumped back, but then realized he couldn’t feel her, and got up close to him again, peering at him intently. “Whatever… so why are we going to this place?”

“To find out what happened. I can’t help her if I don’t know all the facts.” Sandor was regretting his decision to ask Ramsay to come with him, but he was the best person for the task ahead. Sneaky, manipulative, and could get out of a jam in a pinch. Most importantly, he believed Sandor about the ghost girl, the death tape and the curse. He had told Benjen about it, and while he also believed Sandor, he wasn't able to leave work.

**********

The ferry from White Harbor to Pebble Island was late, and when they got on board, it was packed with cars and people. Sandor grumbled as they exited the car. “Ugh, I hate traveling by boat,” Ramsay said. “I’m going to go find someplace that has zero view of the ocean and stay there until this is over.”

“Good luck with that.” Sandor watched Ramsay leave, feeling only slightly apprehensive about it.

The boat was a good size, and for the first hour, Sandor killed time by walking around the upper deck. He felt the presence of his ghostly stalker close behind him the entire time. She had become something of a reassurance since his dream talk with her, if only because she wanted him to save Alyssa from her curse. He could feel the pressure of her draping herself over him as he stared out at the water from the stern of the boat. It was a sensation he had become familiar with in the past two days. She didn’t need sleep, but she lay in his bed, watching over him and Alyssa as they slept, her arm over his chest. She had held his hand as they left Alyssa and Alayna behind. She had put her hand over his heart when he had almost decided to make this trip alone. She was constantly touching him, reminding him that she was still there. If he closed his eyes, it was almost like she was alive, standing with him, and this was just a fun outing instead of a journey to find out the truth behind her death.

“I wish you could just tell me what happened,” he said. “Would definitely save a lot of time…” Her hand brushed against his cheek, raising goosebumps on his skin. “Yeah, I know. I was just… I’m frustrated. It’s not something either of us can help. Memories are tricky things, especially if you’re dead, apparently.” She sighed and hugged him, nuzzling his cheek.

He looked up at the sky. There was still another hour left of travel before they arrived. The scent of the sea was refreshing, filling Sandor with an irrational, yet hesitant hope. A huge flock of birds was flying overhead, easily over one hundred, possibly even two hundred. They blackened out the sky above the boat. One broke off, and landed next to him on the railing. The little brown bird looked exhausted, its feathers drooping as its tiny chest heaved. Sandor frowned. _Weird. This isn’t a seafaring bird._ It almost reminded him of the frightened little bird in the video, but this one was different. He felt Sansa’s hold on him increase, her panic spreading to him like a virus. Something about the brown bird terrified her. It looked up at him, then cocked its head to the side, as if it was looking at the ghost woman hanging onto him. Sansa’s fingers clutched at him, pulling him away, but the bird started to screech with a volume unexpected from its size. It was then that Sandor noticed the blood red eyes of the bird.

It started as a low chirping in the distance, but it grew increasingly louder, drawing Sandor’s attention back to the sky. “Oh, _shit!”_ He took off at a dead run as the flock dipped and flew straight at him, moving in a slick, almost slithering way. Sansa was on his back, but she was shielding him from the onslaught of the avian attack. The other people around him weren’t so lucky. He could hear them screaming, see them ducking in between the cars, and too many falling, blood oozing from the wounds the sharp beaks and talons made in their skin. The bow of the ship was fast approaching and he ducked down, tucking himself into the lee of the solid railing. The birds flew up, over and past him. Daring to peek out, he and the crowd around him watched as the flock began to turn and circle back around. Sansa got in front of him. He could just barely see her, but he definitely felt her. _She’s trying to protect me…_ He wondered if it was because the curse compelled her to complete the task and wouldn’t allow anything else to happen to him.

The surge of power from Sansa made the hairs on just about everyone around stand on end, like a cloud of static electricity. Ever so slightly, she became more visible to Sandor, more opaque, and he heard her screaming at the birds, forcing them to bend to her will as they began to dive at him again. Miracle of miracles, she captured them in her enthrall, and the flock as a whole dove down at a steeper incline than they had begun, propelling them into the water. Their squawks and chirps could be heard as they struggled to get out of the water, but the water churned from the movement of the boat. The birds were caught in the current the boat created, pulling them along the side and under. The crowd ran alongside the rail of the boat, following the birds, Sandor right in the thick of it all. He reached the stern of the boat first, the giant propellers gnashing and churning the water into a froth. Deja vu washed over him. _The scene from the video..._ The birds went through the propellers, turning the water as red as Dornish wine.

**********

“Man, I slept through that?” Ramsay said, full of more disappointment than Sandor expected. “That sounds awesome.”

“Your definition of awesome needs some work, you psycho hobbit.” Sansa was sitting in the backseat of the car, leaning on Ramsay’s chair and putting her hand through his face from the back of his head. She wasn’t hurting him, but it was freaking Sandor out a little. _She is definitely becoming more corporeal,_ he thought. He also realized that she looked… less dead. When he first saw her, she had looked like a drowned corpse, but the grey of her skin had lightened to a light blueish hue, and was not as blotchy as it had once been. He wasn’t sure what was going on.

They had disembarked on Pebble Island and Ramsay was driving them towards the M.A.R.L facility. It was easy enough to get into the place, the security guard at the gate waved them through without even looking at them. Their plan was simple: get in, see the records for all three Starks, take them with them if possible. How to go about doing that, on the other hand, they weren’t quite sure of. Sansa’s apprehension grew the closer they got to the facility.

“Leave it to me. Just stay here in case things go south,” Ramsay said after they had been sitting in the parking lot for nearly fifteen minutes, staring at the building. He got out of the car before Sandor could ask what his plan was.

It was torture to wait for him to return, though it helped to speak out loud to Sansa. Her energy fluctuations were becoming more evident to him, and he could feel her moods as she steadily became more visible. Ramsay had walked right through her on multiple occasions without realizing it. Sansa found it amusing, it seemed. Unfortunately, he still couldn’t hear her voice, so talking was out. She did try to mime to him, which was entertaining. He wondered if she had always been this playful, then remembered that Alyssa had loved playing with her and listening to her stories. It was so different from what he had originally thought of her. She had been so formal in his dream, and now... very much informal as she made a face at him.  _How the hell is Alyssa able to hear her and I’m not…_ She touched his face, on the burned side, to get his attention. Her hair still covered her face, but it wasn’t as much as it had been in the beginning. He could see the resemblance to Catelyn Stark, though Sansa was clearly more beautiful than her mother had been. _Which is saying a lot._ She smiled at him, and started another round of charades.

An hour later, Ramsay was back in the car. “So, we’re going to drive around to the side. There’s an intern that’s willing to let us into the records room.”

“What did you do to him?”

Ramsay grinned. “I’m offended you think so badly of me.”

Sandor could feel Sansa’s laughter. He was not amused. “What did you do?”

Ramsay rolled his eyes. “Fine. I merely insinuated that if he didn’t let us in, I would strap him to a torture rack and beat him until his skin blistered and peeled. He countered with letting us in if I _promised_ to do that to him. I told him I’d have to ask Beric first, but I didn’t see it being a problem.”

“For fuck’s sake, how do you manage to find the S&M people…” Sandor grumbled as Ramsay put the car in reverse.

“Just lucky, I guess.”

**********

Once Sandor, Sansa and Ramsay were in the records room, and the intern had Ramsay’s number, they were free to go through the files as they needed. The intern had assured them that the records in that room were for patients that were no longer in the facility, which included both ones that had been released and those that had passed away. “No one will bother you down here, but, uh, just try to not make so much noise. The pipes and vents carry sound way easier than you’d expect. Call me if you need anything else,” he told them before leaving.

Sansa was eager to help and looked through the shelves of patient boxes with them. Each of them took one set of shelves at a time. It was Ramsay who found the right boxes. “She was filed under her maiden name of Tully, and not Stark. So were the kids.”

“Weird…” Sandor pulled the box out. “Any reason you can think of why that would be?” he asked Sansa. She shrugged her shoulders. “She says no.”

“This is weird seeing you talk to thin air.” Ramsay peered at the space Sansa occupied. She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’ll take Robb’s, you take Catelyn’s, and then we’ll both look at your girlfriend’s box together.” He took the file on Robb, stared at the photo with a frown, then shook his head. “Sound good?”

“Fine, whatever.”

Sansa sunk down into the table, only her eyes and the top of her head were visible as she looked up at him shyly. It confused him for a moment before he realized the implications of what had been said. Sandor would have sworn Sansa turned pink if the lighting was better, or if he could look straight at her without turning an embarrassing shade of red himself.

The box for Catelyn Tully-Stark was stuffed full of notes, documentation, and cassette tapes of her therapy sessions. He flipped through the transcripts, skimming with a practiced ease. There was little to note, as far as Sandor could tell. She was concerned about her children, but not that they were happy and healthy. She was more concerned that they were _normal._ Sandor snorted. If he had learned anything from his guardianship over Alyssa, it was that children were _never_ normal. There was something off about the notes, but Sandor couldn’t quite figure out what that was.

“This is interesting.”

Sandor looked up at Ramsay. He was chewing on the end of a pen as he read. “What is?”

“Looks like the good doctors of M.A.R.L. were not interested in _helping_ psychics. They exploited them, tried to harness their powers for the company. Weaponized some, whored out others… Robby here, well, he could be in a room without being in a room. He was used to spy. His body wasn’t strong though. Not surprising, since he was confined to a four by ten foot room most of the time. Ate the barest of meals… No social interaction with anyone other than the doctors experimenting on him.”

Sandor remembered the scenes he saw in Sansa’s head when she woke him from his dream. Catelyn’s box was abandoned for Sansa’s. It didn’t take long for Sandor to see that similar tests were done on the girl. “They… they did this to you…?” he asked her. She nodded slowly, bowing her head. “Fuck…”

Ramsay took the notes from Sandor. “She was stronger. They pushed her further, harder. She grew in her powers, as well as her body… Shit… No wonder you like her. She looks badass.”

Sandor peered at the photo of Sansa in the file. She looked different, more alive, of course, but… “She looks angry. Ready to kill.” Sansa pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked so vastly different from the photo and so adorable that Sandor barked out a laugh. “Relax. That’s not a bad thing.”

“Will you stop flirting already? Giving me a damn cavity and it’s fucking weird,” Ramsay growled. “Ok… let’s see…”

“Give me that, I’ll read through hers, you read through her mother’s. Couldn’t make sense of the psych notes,” Sandor said, taking the file from Ramsay. Ramsay scowled, but went to Catelyn’s box and started reading. Sandor set out some of the notes so that Sansa could read through them. She could flip the pages with a bit of effort, and seemed to be an even faster reader than Sandor. They sat in quiet, concentrating on their own searches. His heart sunk the more he read.

An hour or so had passed. “This is messed up,” Ramsay announced.

“What is?”

“This Dr. Baelish. He’s obsessed with Catelyn Stark. His notes read like a stalker’s diary.”

Sandor blinked. “That’s it! I was trying to figure out why those notes sounded so fucking weird. What the hells is wrong with these people?!”

Ramsay looked over at him. “What have you got?”

Sandor pointed down at the notes he had been reading. “Ok, so we know that they weren’t trying to cure her like Mrs. Stark was told. They were pushing her to develop her powers, to weaponize her, but the level at which they did it… It was too fast, and she was not reacting well. I had just gotten to that part when you spoke up.” He skimmed a bit. “Yeah, ok, says here, Sansa had been showing clear signs of insanity. She was talking to herself, talking to people that weren’t there, lashing out at anyone who came near her, showing no remorse for hurting them… And then, suddenly, one day she just snapped. Her powers had grown so much that she was able to break out of her bonds, killed anyone in her way, and made it halfway across the compound before they could stop her. The only way they were able to do that was to bring in her mother. As soon as her guard was let down, she was injected with a sedative that knocked her out.”

He frowned, then flipped through the notes.

“What? What’s wrong?” Ramsay asked.

“There’s nothing past that, except for a note that says she was to be transferred to an auxiliary site a day before her death.”

“Huh… weird. Sound familiar, ghost girl?” Ramsay looked around, unclear on where Sansa was. Sandor turned to her, and she shook her head. She walked closer to Sandor, pointed to the notes that talked about her trying to leave the facility, then to her head, and shook it again.

“Seems she doesn’t remember any of this.”

She pointed to the notes about the tests that were run, the experiments she was put through, and nodded.

“But she remembers before that, how they drove her insane…” Sandor said softly. Sansa lowered her eyes in shame. “Hey, don’t… It wasn’t your fault. It was theirs. You were innocent, a kid, and they took that from you.” She gave him a sad smile.

“Sorry to break up the gross affectionate comfort,” Ramsay said, his voice unamused and droll, “but I just checked Catelyn and Robb’s notes. They were also transferred to an auxiliary site. Doesn’t say where.”

“Easy enough to find out,” Sandor said. “But we should get out of here. Think we can sneak these boxes out?”

**********

It had taken more pleading with the intern, but they got the boxes and had found a hotel to stay in for the night. Ramsay asked for a room on the opposite end from Sandor, saying he didn’t want to be anywhere near Sandor’s ghost girlfriend. Sansa stuck her tongue out as Ramsay walked away. “Don’t worry about him. He’s always an ass. Still not as bad as his dad,” Sandor told her.

The room was decent, and the clerk had said that there weren’t a lot of guests that evening. Sandor felt more comfortable knowing no one would question him bringing in the old, dusty boxes. He made a call to Brienne before diving in to read more of the notes on Robb, and discovered that while it had been equally terrible for him, he hadn’t shown the same amount of progress as Sansa had. His torture had ended before insanity hit him, simply because the effort to grow his powers wasn’t worth the cost. Sansa sat on the bed with him, leaning on his arm, her eyes closed. She seemed content.

He was searching for the next set of notes in the box when his fingers touched a familiar piece of plastic. Pulling it out of the box, he found a video cassette, this one marked with “Tully” and the date of her transfer. He immediately reached for the phone to call the front desk. “Hey, this is Sandor Clegane in room twelve. Do you happen to have a VHS machine on hand?”

**********

An hour later, the front desk clerk delivered an old VHS player to Sandor’s room. The kid looked perplexed, but Sandor gave him a nice tip for his effort and sent him on his merry way.

“Ok,” he said, once it had been set up. “Let’s see what this is about.” He inserted the tape and pressed play. Sansa was standing with Robb in the middle of a stone room. It looked like the room at the end of the death video, but there was no opening in the floor, just a circular, partial enclosure that the two kids were standing inside of. The part of the floor where their feet were looked a bit odd to Sandor, but he couldn't figure out why. Catelyn was nowhere to be seen.

_“Do you know where you are, sweetlings?”_ a voice off-camera asked. Sandor immediately didn’t trust this person.

_“N-no,”_ Robb said, his voice shaky. His arm was around Sansa protectively, but he looked as effective as a leaf in the wind. _“Where are we?”_

_“This is part of a very old castle called the Eyrie. An ancestor of mine had it shipped here, brick by brick. Just part of it. It was to show that the liege lord was no longer able to control our family, that WE had taken control. This was the judgement room. That area you're standing in? It's called the moondoor. The Eyrie was high above the rest of the world, and the moondoor opened so that the judged would fall to the earth far below them. Of course, this structure now sits on the ground, so you are in no danger of falling to your deaths. Over there, that high seat? That was where the liege lord sat to pass his judgement. When I was a child, I liked to come here, to sit in that seat. I found it relaxing. Isn’t this place relaxing, children?”_

Sansa looked at the camera, a crazed look in her eye. _“Relaxing? I will relax when your head is on a pike!!”_ she snarled, jumping towards the unseen man, but Robb held her back. _“Let me go!!”_ she shrieked.

_“There, there, sweetling. Uncle Petyr is here to help you. You’ve been in pain, haven’t you? You’ve been causing much pain to others. To the nurses, the doctors--”_

_“They hurt me first! I was just defending myself!”_ she yelled. _“They hurt Robb! They hurt Mother! I have to protect them!!”_

_“No one is hurting your mother,”_ Petyr said. Sandor suddenly realized that this was probably Dr. Baelish. _“I make sure of that.”_

Sansa’s eyes narrowed to slits, and Sandor shivered from the energy she was exhibiting. _“YOU are hurting her, DOC-tor.”_

Petyr seemed unfazed. _“And how do you imagine I am doing that?”_

_“I don’t IMAGINE it,”_ Sansa sneered. _“I KNOW it. You tricked her. Tricked her into giving us to you, into giving herself to your 'care'. You tricked her with her medicine, because it wasn't medicine, it was sleeping pills or some sort of sedative. You knocked her out with it, and every night, you mounted my mother like she was a prize mare, and you a stud stallion. I assure you, DOC-tor, you are not. I have SEEN you, Baelish, seen your soul. I have seen what I was meant for, the future I should have had if it hadn't been for you! You are NOTHING compared to him. You are NOTHING compared to my father. You put a child in her, WITHOUT her consent."_ Sansa smiled, a cruel, insane smile that Sandor didn't recognize. _"I know you know about it, have been slowly poisoning us, trying to get rid of us so you can have her all to yourself. She’ll figure it out eventually, even if I never tell her. She will know you for what you are, a snake, and Father can use the pregnancy to get her out of here, to get US out of here.”_ She started to laugh maniacally. _“Your base needs have brought about your failure. You can’t keep us here any longer. I will fight you, I will make sure you burn to the ground!!”_

There was silence for nearly a minute, then, _“Such a shame. A waste. All that talent, all that potential, and you had to go and say all of that. You're never going to play well with others, will you, sweetlings? I had hoped it wouldn’t end like this, but you have outlived your usefulness, children. In addition, I believe this will really help your mother move on.”_ A hand raised into view of the camera, holding a gun, and shot Robb. He fell hard to the stone floor. Sansa froze, her eyes going wide. Baelish aimed for her and shot again. She spun around from the force of the bullet and crumpled to the floor. Footsteps could be heard echoing in the stone room. _“Such a shame… Good thing I have an easy way to dispose of them.”_

A gurgling noise could be heard, and Robb lifted his hand ever so slightly. The footsteps stopped, then started up again, this time heading toward Robb. A slender, poised man appeared, dark hair with the beginnings of grey at the temples. He held a trash bag in his hand. Robb reached for him, and Sandor could only imagine that he was asking for help, but the man, Baelish, looked down at him in disappointment. He helped the boy to a sitting position, then pulled the black plastic bag tight around Robb’s face. Sandor could see the boy struggle in vain against it. _The plastic bag in the video,_ he thought. He remembered thinking that it looked like something was struggling beneath it.

Once Robb stopped moving, Baelish let him fall back to the floor. The man got up and walked off camera. A harsh, grinding noise started up, and the floor beneath Sansa and Robb began to move, to open. Sandor watched in horror as their bodies fell into the pit he had seen in the death video. The door stopped, then began to close again. Baelish walked back to the hole in the ground, to watch and make sure it closed fully. When the grinding stopped, he covered the blood spattered stone with a rug, then turned and looked at the camera, seeming to remember that it was still on. He began to walk towards it, but a shout could be heard, and then the door opened to the stone room. _“Doctor! It’s Miss Tully! She’s screaming, and we can’t calm her down!”_ the young woman said. She was dressed as an orderly.

Baelish looked panicked, then took a deep breath and straightened his suit. _“Tidy up this room,”_ he told her. _“And do not, under any circumstances, look at the video recording. It is a patient session, and I will not have you betraying the trust between me and my patient.”_ The orderly nodded, and Baelish left. The girl let out a shaky breath, then headed to the camera. The recording ended a few seconds later.

Sandor sat on the bed, staring at the TV screen. “Shit… That was… That was how you died. The orderly must have placed the video in the patient files, not knowing what it was…” Sansa was facing away from him. She was fully opaque, with only the slightest tint of blue to her. “Sansa?”

“I remember…” she whispered. Sandor blinked, surprised at hearing her voice again.

“You can speak?”

“A little…” she said softly, and turned to him. “Not very loudly at the moment. I thought the use of my power on the ferry would leave me drained, but… I feel stronger… I feel… powerful. I remember that happening, from the video… but… still much is missing…" She shook her head, then reached for one of the boxes. Tentatively, she looked through them. "My drawings…"

Sandor looked over her shoulder. She was holding faded drawings in her hands, ones that ranged from a child's crayon to beautifully rendered charcoal. There were drawings of families, couples, so many happy scenes. 

"I remember these," she whispered. "I was so lonely… and I could see images in my head. Bad images. So I tried to drown them out with other pictures." She handed them to him one by one. "This was our house. This one was grandfather's house, then ours… after grandfather and Uncle Brandon passed away, I mean."

"Looks like a castle."

She giggled. "It was. It's been in Stark family for ages. You read about it in the library, remember? This is Winterfell. Our little house, before Father became the head of the Stark family, was on the property, but it wasn't as grand as the main building." She flipped through more of the drawings, smiling over some, frowning over others. Then she stopped on one. "This… This tree…"

It was a huge tree, with a face carved into it. The leaves were bright red. "I've seen that tree," Sandor said.

"You have?"

"Yeah… At the campsite where I found the video. I didn't see a face carved into it, but that's definitely the tree I saw. After I watched the tape, I ran out of there, and there it was."

“I remember that happening. I never noticed the tree.” She looked up at him with big, soulful eyes. “Will you hold me? Please? I just really want to be held right now.”

He nodded and started clearing the bed off, turning off the TV and returning the tape to the box. He settled in bed, then let Sansa get settled as well. She rested her head on his chest, her arm over his ribs. It was so strange. Not even a week ago, she had been something on the edge of his perception, and now, he could hold her, feel her as if she was as alive as he was. He flicked off the lamp, and in the darkness of the room and the neon green of the motel sign that managed to get past the curtains, he could imagine that she really was there, alive and well, and that he wasn’t trying to escape the curse’s wrath.

“I wonder if we would have met,” she said, “if I hadn’t been taken to M.A.R.L.”

“It’s possible… I know your uncle, Benjen Stark. We’ve been friends for years.”

“Uncle Ben…” she repeated. “I remember him. Not much, since he didn’t visit often, but I remember him. He looks like Father.”

“Yeah. He does. He’s a good man. Told me about you. He and your father tried to get you out.”

“Did they? I didn’t know…or maybe I did. There is so much of my life that I don’t remember. There is so much I must have missed out on.” She tilted her head up to look at him. “Will you kiss me?”

He felt his chest tighten. “Do you want me to?”

“Yes. I can’t remember if I’ve been kissed before, though I doubt I have, considering my life, but I remember everything after my resurrection as a cursed ghost with complete clarity. If we can’t stop your death, I wish to remember that you gave me a kiss. Possibly… more. I mean, if you are not… um, _adverse_ to it.” She bit her lip nervously. "I mean, it's not like you have to worry about impregnating me or catching a disease…"

Sandor blinked in surprise, then leaned down to kiss the ghost girl in his bed.


	9. Day 7, Wednesday

After telling Ramsay what he had discovered on the tape and the information Brienne had found, Sandor was silent for most of the car trip. Sansa was as well, but whenever he looked at her, she would blush, smile, and look away bashfully, then sneak a peek at him, still smiling. He wanted to smile as well, but he was too confused over what had happened between them the previous night. It felt right, _but she was dead._ It felt right, _but she's a ghost._ It felt right...and really fucking good, _but how did it even work? I came inside her… but… where did it go… It's not like--_ He had felt everything he should have, but anyone looking in on him would have seen him having sex with just air. It was weird, but also right, and that made his head hurt if he thought too much about it. He tried to focus on the things Brienne had told him with her morning call. Thanks to her digging, Sandor knew that there were four auxiliary sites that the three Starks could have been taken to, but only one of them had been a place he had been to before. M.A.R.L. had sold off land shortly after the Starks died, and it had been bought by the neighbor to expand the Twins Crossing Campgrounds.

Ramsay was thrilled about the silence, and cheerfully remarked on it as they drove.

**********

"Oh, Mr. Hill, you're back again," Merry said cheerfully. "And… Oh, Ramsay, dear. How… How nice to see you again…? How do you two kno--"

"Can it, Mer. We need the keys to cabin eight." Ramsay held out his hand expectantly. Merry just looked at it like it was a snake about to bite her. _"Now,_ Merry. Or I tell everyone about your little secret boyfriend."

Merry looked horrified and handed the keys over. "What are you planning on doing?" she asked, her voice shaking a bit.

"Gonna burn it down, exorcise a ghost, save an idiot and his niece. The usual."

“Rami…” The woman sighed. “Fine, just… just don’t kill anyone. No one ever likes that cabin anyway…”

“Deal. Now gimme the keys.” They left Merry grumbling about ungrateful brats.

**********

“Her sister used to date my dad. Long time ago. She thought she was in love with him, despite the vast age difference, and they left me with Merry when they went out. She wasn’t terrible at keeping me out of trouble. Anyway, Walda went on to marry a lunkhead by the name of Clegane. Big guy. Worshiped her. You might know him. They had a snotty kid who went to live with the guy’s idiot brother when they were killed in an auto accident.”

“Wait… Walda… My sister in law? Shit… Really glad I never told her my real name then. She would have recognized it. What was that about a secret boyfriend?”

“Ah, yeah, it’s not as secret as she thinks. She met this guy a while back, name of Karl, they fell in love, but her dad disapproved of her dating anyone, so she kept it a secret, but she _sucks_ at secrets. Everyone knows about him but pretends not to for Merry’s sake. Actually, I think old Walder is just about the only person who doesn't know about Karl. Anyway, he lives here with her, helps run this place. Nice guy, kinda spacey, likes to wander around the woods, sometimes talks to the trees and flowers and shit. It’s stupid but not my family, so I don't really care.”

“Long as she’s happy and they’re not hurting anyone, I guess,” Sandor said. They reached the cabin quicker than he had expected. The sun was beginning to set. "Ok… now what?"

"Ghost girl, any ideas?" Ramsay asked, looking around.

"No… I don't remember…" she told Sandor. "I mean, I remember this place, since it's usually where I meet the victims of the curse, but other than that… it's just always been here. I've always been here and never really known _why._ This is just where I stay until someone watches the video and it is the place I return to once they die."

"She doesn't know," Sandor said, his voice tight. The sun touched the top of the tree. "And my time is nearly up." His breathing became short and rapid as the panic started to set in. He grabbed a vase full of blue roses and threw it against the wall, roaring in frustration. "This is bullshit! We're right here! We're so close!!"

"Sandor…" Sansa said, reaching for him. "I'm so sorry…"

"What's that?" Ramsay asked, pointing at the floor beneath the tv stand. The marbles that had held the flowers upright in the vase had rolled and pooled beneath the tv. He pushed away the tv stand so that Sandor could pull back the carpet. The floor underneath was burnt, looking like claw marks on the wood paneling. "Creepy. It's like you were trying to get out."

Sansa frowned, but Sandor ran outside to grab the woodcutting axe. Running back inside, he started attacking the wooden floor. It didn’t take long for him to make a decent sized hole, revealing a stone well hidden underneath the cabin.

“Is that… is that the well? The one you said was in the video?” Ramsay asked.

"Yeah…" Sandor hopped down. "Help me open it!" Ramsay jumped down and the two of them moved the stone that covered the well. Sansa floated down and looked into the well.

"Sandor…" she said, her voice shaking. "I have a bad feeling about this… I don't think--" Sansa disappeared without warning.

"Sansa?? Sansa!!"

"What happened?" Ramsay asked.

"I… I don't know, she was talking, mid-sentence, and then just… vanished."

"Vanished? But…" He sighed. "Never mind that right now--"

 _"What do you mean never mind?"_ Sandor roared. "She's gone! And--"

"I mean, never mind that because we have bigger problems at the moment! Unless you suddenly discovered how to avoid being brutally murdered by your dead girlfriend in the last sixty seconds and didn't tell me?!" Ramsay shouted at him. "Well??"

Sandor cursed, and shook his head. "Get a flashlight. I can't see how far the well goes down."

Ramsay climbed out of the hole and back into the cabin. Neither one of them noticed the tv flicker on. Nor did they notice the nails in the floorboards loosening, or the bolts in the support beams coming undone. Ramsay jumped back down and handed the flashlight over. "Brought this, too," he said, holding up a clock radio.

"For…?"

Ramsay dropped the radio into the well, and they both listened for the splash. Sandor shone the flashlight down, but it was like shining it into an abyss. From very, very far away, they heard a soft _ker-plunk._ "Well, that… that's not good…" Ramsay muttered.

"Shhhh! Do you hear that?" They both leaned in. "Sounds like…"

"Buzzing?" Ramsay asked, and then suddenly a swarm of flies flew up out of the well darkening the entire area. Sandor swatted at the flies, but there were just too many. He heard something wooden break behind him, and turned just in time to see the tv sliding across the now inclined floorboards and hit him squared in the chest, pushing him into the well head first.

**********

Sandor was cold. That was the first thing he noticed. The second sensation he recognized was that he was floating. He tried to take a breath, but ice cold water burned his nostrils. His eyes flew open and he flailed, pushing himself to an upright position. Gasping for breath, he choked on the water until he was able to find his footing and stand up.

"Hey!" Ramsay was calling from above. "You dead?"

"Fucking psycho hobbit! No! I'm not dead! Find some rope or something!"

He could just see Ramsay in the light coming from above, and he clearly saw the finger Ramsay was flipping him. "I'm not pulling your heavy ass up!"

Sandor rolled his eyes. "Just find some rope and secure it to something. I can pull myself up."

"Fine! Whatever…" Ramsay left the edge of the well, leaving Sandor to explore the small space he now found himself in.

The well was wider than he was tall, but not by much. Stones slippery from moss and water lined the hole. He saw scratch marks on some of the stones, even a fingernail that had been broken off. "Shit… was she…"

"Did you say something?" Ramsay called down.

"Just… thinking out loud!!" he yelled. "Did you find a rope?"

"No! Sheets aren't enough to reach you either. Maybe if I rip them and then tie them-- Oh! I see a firehose station outside. I think I can steal the hose and use that as a rope. Bee-Are-Bee!!!"

"Psycho hobbit…" Sandor muttered as Ramsay ran off. He looked around a bit more, then heard a scraping sound above him. "Ramsay?"

He looked up to see the light being blocked as the round stone that covered the well was moving back into place. _The image from the video!!_ he thought, panicked.

"Ramsay!!!" he screamed, though there was no way Ramsay could have been closing it. Even Sandor couldn't move that damn thing by himself and he was twice as strong as his companion. The stone clanged shut, and Sandor saw the first and final image of the video.

"The ring… it's the well being covered…" he said softly. The air became hard to breathe. Sandor was suddenly aware of the fact that he was not alone in the well. "S-Sansa?" he whispered. There was something floating in the water. He reached out with a shaky hand to touch it. It was hair. Dark, red hair. "San--" A hand burst through the water and grabbed his arm. Images began to flood his brain, much like they had the night he spoke to Sansa for the first time.

Suddenly, he was floating above the room. The camcorder was there, facing the moondoor above what he now knew was the well. The rug covering it was exactly like he had seen in the video. No one else was there, but then the door flew open and a woman who looked like an older Sansa came storming in. "Catelyn Stark," Sandor said.

"Yes…" he heard next to him. He turned to see Sansa. "This is the past. This is what happened after the recording stopped."

"You're ok… You're here…"

"Shh…" she said, holding his hand. "I've never seen this before. Let's listen. Watch. Learn."

They both turned to watch the woman pace around the room, Petyr Baelish close behind her. "Sweetling--"

"My children, Petyr! Where are they?! I need to see them! I have the most horrible feeling…"

"Cat, I assure you--"

"NO! Nothing can assure me until I see them here, in front of me." She wrung her hands and stopped at the circular enclosure. "Here…" she whispered, then more loudly, "They're here!" She knelt at the moondoor, tossing aside the rug and patting at it furiously, even scratching at it to get it to open. "They're here! They're hurt, they need me!"

"Sweet Cat, you'll hurt yourself." Baelish went to Catelyn and helped her up. "The children are not here. I don't know how to tell you this, but… the children committed suicide."

Catelyn recoiled from his touch, returning to her spot on the moondoor. "What?! No!!"

"Yes, sweetling, they did."

"No! Not my babies! They wouldn't leave me! Not like this!" Catelyn was hysterical, tears and some snot flowing down her face now.

"I'm so sorry. But… it was peaceful. They had been hoarding their pills, took them all at once… They just… fell asleep, and didn't wake up." He stood next to the kneeling woman and stroked her hair. "I am here for you, Cat. Together, we can be strong. I can be the family you need to get you through this terrible time."

"Family…" she said, then clutched her abdomen and doubled over in pain, screaming.

"Cat?! What's wrong? Tell me!" Baelish demanded, rolling her over onto her back. The blood seeping out from in between her legs was evident to everyone. "No! The baby!"

"Wha…? What baby?" Catelyn asked, then screamed and grabbed at her abdomen again. "Am… Am I pregnant??"

Baelish winced. "Yes… you are."

"But…" She screamed again. "HOW?!" she asked, once the pain subsided. "I haven't seen Ned in so long!"

Baelish held her hand as she screamed again. "Cat… my sweet Cat… This child… it is born of our love, you and me--"

Baelish screamed this time, holding his face. Blood dripped from his cheek, from Catelyn's fingertips. From what Sandor could see, she had ripped skin from the man's face, deep gouges that were sure to leave scars.

"Cat! What are you _doing?!"_ he shrieked.

"You! You raped me!! And… oh my gods, you killed my children as well?! And you dare to ask what _I'm_ doing?!" she hissed. Her breathing was labored, she was much too pale for Sandor to not be concerned, but there was no question. Catelyn Stark was _pissed off._

"Cat, my sweet, you're in pain, you're bleeding, you're not in your right mind… Let me call an orderly. We can get you the help you need…" He was holding his other hand out to her. "Please, you must think of our child."

She glared at Baelish, then shoved her hand into her own blood and smeared it across her face so that it looked like she had clawed her skin with her own fingers. She pointed a bloody finger at Baelish, anger and hatred marring her beautiful voice to a coarse shriek. _"Labhraíonn mé curse ar do dhoras, d'fhéadfadh go mbeadh do bhás chomh pianmhar mar a bhí ag mo pháistí."_

"Cat…? What is that… What is that you're saying?" Baelish looked as confused as Sandor felt.

"Le mo anáil bháis, rachaidh mé ort go dtí go bhfaigheann tú féin agus gach duine a bhfuil baint acu _le bás ag láimh Whent,"_ she spat out. The blood was still spilling from her. She was growing paler, though she still looked strong enough to kill Baelish if he got too close to her spot on the moondoor. "I swear by the blood of my blood, I will see you soon, _Petyr,"_ she hissed before collapsing. Her chest was too still, and Sandor realized that she was dead.

"The child… the spawn of Baelish," Sansa murmured. "Her body must have rejected it, a miscarriage."

"Do miscarriages normally kill a woman?" Sandor asked. Sansa shook her head.

"I don't think so, but… I suppose it's possible, since she didn't get immediate care. Nothing about this is making sense. That sounded like… Well, it sounded like my mother cast the curse, but I know that I cast one too. I mean, I must have…"

They watched as Baelish checked on Catelyn. The man sighed heavily, and sat on the floor next to the dead woman. "Well… fuck," he muttered. Her blood was pooling on the moondoor, but not going beyond the circle. Sandor could only assume it was dripping into the well below. Baelish got up slowly, and went to the door. Pressing a button on the intercom, he called for orderlies to come and clean up. Sandor and Sansa continued to watch as Baelish fabricated a story, that the children had gone missing, that he suspected that Catelyn Tully had killed them, but he knew for a fact that she had killed herself. He told them that she had gone crazy, had attacked him, then had bludgeoned herself enough to bleed internally and die from loss of blood, that he had tried to help her, but she wouldn't let him.

They were still watching after Catelyn Stark's body was taken away for cremation, when the Judgement Room was cleared of everyone and everything, and there was no one except the two of them.

"Now what?" Sandor asked. Sansa shook her head and opened her mouth to say something, but they both froze when a pitiful wail was heard.

 _"M-mother!"_ came two voices from deep underneath the moondoor.

**********

Sandor gasped as he found himself back in the well. He looked down at where he had been grabbed, and saw the burn mark he had previously received from Sansa was fading quickly.

"They were still alive…" he said, "fuck, Sansa and Robb… they were still _alive_ when..." He looked around him, trying to see into the water. "Where did you go? Sansa! Answer me!"

A flash of red caught his eye, and a body floated up from the dark water. "Sansa…" he said softly, taking her into his arms. Sandor pressed his lips to hers, but there was no response. "Sansa? Wake up, please… wake up." Still nothing. "Sansa… please… come back to me. I… I love you…"

He felt cold arms around his neck, embracing him, and heard a whisper next to his ear. _"I'm so sorry, Sandor… I love you, too, but you have to let go now."_

The body he held began to disintegrate. Her flesh and hair withered in front of his eyes, until he was holding a mere skeleton in a haggard patient's gown. "Sansa…"

"Hey! You dead yet? It's past sundown!!" Ramsay called from above. "I've got fifty bucks riding on you being dead."

Sandor let the skeleton slip back into the water and rubbed at the tears falling from his eyes. "I'm not dead yet, you psycho hobbit!" he called back up.

"Damnit!!" 

**********

Benjen came to help Sandor and be of assistance to the local police. "You ok there?" he asked Sandor, giving him some of the hot coffee another officer had given him. Ramsay was flitting around animatedly, making notes on what the police were doing as they excavated the well.

"She was still alive, Ben," Sandor said. "Her and Robb. They were both alive in that well, could hear their mother above them, but couldn't reach out to her, couldn't do anything to help her, to help themselves… Their mother's blood dripped down onto them for who knows how long. The curse, Catelyn's dying words…" He shook his head. "They were two scared kids, never allowed to be kids, and all they wanted was to go home."

"I should have tried harder…" Benjen said. "I should have… I don't know, lay siege on the company. Taken a battering ram to their front gate. Just… _something."_

"You did what you could. You wouldn't have been any help to them behind bars. Baelish is the one who needs to suffer. _He's_ the one who was behind this, _all_ of this."

"An investigation will be opened, I can assure you of that."

"It's not what Catelyn would have wanted," he murmured. Benjen looked at him. "She cursed him, but she wasn't strong enough. This… _thing_ that kills you, it started with her, but she wasn't powerful enough to truly cast it. I think… when her blood dripped onto Sansa, that curse, it was powered by her death. Baelish wasn't around, she must have been quite insane by that point, couldn't direct it at him…" He got quiet for a few moments, then said, "If it wasn't for him, she'd be… they'd _all_ still be alive. He _needs_ to answer for his crimes, one way or another. She and Robb weren't the only people in his paranormal program. Probably still going, knowing what I know of him so far."

Benjen nodded in agreement. "How long can a person survive like that?" Benjen wondered aloud. "Down in that well?

"Seven days," Sandor answered. He watched as the coroner pushed what was left of Sansa's body to his van on a stretcher. "Do you think I would have met her? If she hadn't…"

"Probably." Benjen looked thoughtful. "I think you two would have been good friends. If Robb let you get anywhere near her, I mean." They both chuckled.


	10. Day 8, Thursday

_ “Is it done?” _ his dad asked. Ramsay sighed into the phone, throwing his keys into the stupid bowl Beric had left by the door. Something about a place for everything. It was one of the things he loved about Beric, the stability, among other things. Not that he’d ever admit to it. He and Sandor had been up all night with the police and then driving all day, just in time for him to get caught amidst the kids coming back from school. He hated the little snots. He could see Beric laying in bed, reading, from where he stood in their apartment.

“Yeah. We found the girl’s body. Not her brother's, for some reason. Her mom was cremated apparently, but the girl… Horrible end, even by my standards--” 

_ “Good… good… I can finally get some peace…” _ Roose muttered.

“Dad? You actually started to believe?” Ramsay was certain his father would never come around, even if Sansa Stark had pulled him into the moondoor herself.

_ “I’ve been… I've been troubled… I’ve seen some things… things that aren’t right… things that made me question my own sanity. But she’s gone. Dead and buried. May she burn in hell.” _ Ramsay just shook his head. His father had no empathy for anyone other than himself and his precious firstborn son, Ramsay’s half brother, Domeric.

“Right, well, I’m going to get to bed--”

_ “I need you to bring those files on the Bear Island project. Right now.” _

“But I’ve been driving nearly all day, awake since yesterday! I just got home and--”

_ “NOW, Ramsay. Or I will make you suffer more.” _

Ramsay bit his phone. “FINE. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He hung up, looked mournfully in the direction of his bedroom with the comfy bed and even comfier bitch, and turned around. "I'll be back in a bit. Dad needs some files."

"Do you want me to drive you?" Beric called out to him. 

Ramsay took a moment to decide. "Yeah. Even your old man driving will be better than mine at the moment."

He had left the physical and video files for the Bear Island project in his car, so Beric made it to Roose's place in less time than Ramsay had estimated. Beric stayed in the car as Ramsay made his way up to the loft. An eerie feeling crept up the back of his neck as he walked in.

"Dad?" he called out. Static from the TV could be heard. "It's too quiet in here. Did you fall and knock yourself out?"

Ramsay walked further into the room. He could see his dad's head over the back of the expensive office chair he had gloated about for months. Ramsay had been tempted to steal it just to mess with him, but his father would have burned him alive for it.

"Dad?" He spun the chair around to see the mutilated corpse of Roose Bolton.

**********

_ “You heard me,” _ Ramsay said.  _ “Dad still died, and it was way worse than any of those crime scene photos you showed me. Whatever we did, it didn’t stop the curse, it only made it stronger. Your niece is next, so figure out why you were spared, and Dad wasn’t. It’s that simple. I gotta go. The police are here.” _ The line beeped as Ramsay disconnected the call.

Sandor looked at his phone in dismay. After everything he had done, everything he had gone through, and Alyssa was still in danger. The walk to her room was the longest he had ever taken. How was he supposed to tell her that he had been spared, but she was still doomed? He stopped at her door, took a deep breath, and then realized he heard Alyssa talking to someone.  _ Sansa! _

Flinging open the door, he surprised Alyssa, who was playing with her dolls. “Unca?” she asked timidly.

“She’s here, isn’t she?” he asked, looking around the room. “I know you’re here, Sansa! Come out already!”

It took a moment, and he began to doubt himself, but then Sansa appeared next to Alyssa’s bed. “How did you know?” she asked. She was completely opaque, and only had the slightest tint of blue to her skin, like she was cold. Sandor felt relieved and worried at the same time to see her again.

“Yeah! I didn’t even know she was there!!” Alyssa exclaimed and ran over to Sansa, hugging her. Sansa hugged her back and stroked her hair.

“You didn’t? Then who were you talking to?” he asked.

“Duh, my dolls were talking to each other.” Alyssa looked at him like he was nuts.

“Oh…” 

“Sandor,” Sansa said, blushing a little. “I’m sorry I hid from you… I just… I thought it would be easier on you, and on Allie. I mean… you can’t exactly have a relationship with a ghost.”

“You have a relationship?!” Alyssa said with a happy squeal, hopping from one foot to the other.

“No,” Sandor said hastily, “I mean… sort of? It’s complicated, pup, but that’s not the point here.”

“It isn’t?” both girls asked.

“No. The point here is that the curse wasn’t lifted. I don’t know why I was spared, but it’s still very much in effect, even stronger now.”

“Wait… what?” Sansa asked, bewildered. “But… when? Who?”

“An associate of mine, he helped me at the beginning… he watched the tape here, in my living room…" 

Sansa tilted her head to the side as she thought. "Oh, the man who ignored the phone call?"

"Yeah, that's him. He died not an hour ago. Ramsay called to tell me."

"He was not very nice," Sansa said with a sigh. "Downright wicked, actually. But I didn't kill him. I was here watching over Allie."

"Then, who…?”

Sansa looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know exactly, but… Remember when I said there was another force at work?” Sandor vaguely recalled her mentioning it. “I have  _ never _ been able to figure out what it is. That's what killed your associate.”

“Is there a way?” he asked. "To find out, I mean."

She looked away nervously. “Possibly, but I don’t know if it will work. I’ve never been strong enough to do it before.”

“Do what?”

She sighed. “To call the other force to me. And… I don’t know what will happen. It could expedite the seven days instead."

"We have to take that chance. I'll call… Benjen! He knows about this, maybe he can help."

**********

"This is… highly unusual," Benjen said after Sandor had explained everything. He was staring at the ghost of his niece. "You… you're real…" he said, reaching for her. She took his hand in hers. "By the gods…" 

"Ben," Sandor said gently. Benjen shook his head.

"Sorry… this is just so surreal. But, back to the matter at hand. If I'm understanding correctly, you're going to call the other force in this curse to you, and… talk to it? Make it bend to your will?"

"I… I'm honestly not sure what will happen, but yes, I'm going to try to get it to change Allie's fate." Sansa looked down at the little girl. She smiled sweetly at Sansa. "Yes. I'm  _ going _ to do this. I  _ will _ change her fate."

**********

Several hours later, they found themselves in an abandoned warehouse that Benjen knew of. He felt it was safest that they be in an area where they could keep casualties to a minimum. 

"You're sure you want to do this?" Sandor asked Sansa. Benjen had spoken to several people on the topic, and from what he understood, the best way to keep Alyssa safe was to keep her in a ring of salt. She was currently watching Sansa's uncle draw the circle around her, fascinated that the granules were supposed to keep the dark forces away from her.

"Yes. I am sure. I will do everything I can to protect you all." She held up her hand. "I'm stronger than I have been in years. If there was ever a time for me to try, it is now."

Sandor sighed heavily. "I know it was my idea, but I'm having second thoughts. What if something happens to you?"

She kissed him lightly. "I know. But… you have already set me free from the well. The police searched and there was nothing else there, nothing else that could possibly be used to stop the curse. I cannot think of another way, can you?" He shook his head. "I would die a thousand times for you, Sandor."

"You shouldn't have had to die in the first place," he said quietly. "Not like that."

"What's done is done. We can only move forward from here." She kissed him again, and they both ignored the stifled squeals from Alyssa. 

"Hey," Sandor said, not wanting to let go just yet.

"What is it?"

"You said… you were getting stronger?"

She nodded. "Yes, that's right."

"Stronger than you've ever been?" She nodded. "Why?"

"Oh… I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it." She tilted her head as she pondered it. "I suppose… I think it's because of you."

"Me?"

She nodded. "You are the first person who thought to investigate. Well, a few others did, but no one ever got very far, and they only did it because they had already watched the video. You, on the other hand, you've found out more than I ever could, and you watched the tape  _ because _ you were investigating it. It was how I knew you were different in the beginning. And Allie…" She looked over at the little girl, who was giggling at something Benjen was telling her. "I think there's something in your bloodline, something that makes you both different. You know how the Starks are supposedly descended from the Children of the Forest and have Old Magic in our blood?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I think there might be some magic in yours as well. Definitely in Allie's." 

"That's… Well, I don't know what to say about that," he said.

She smiled. "It's just speculation."

"You kids ready to do this?" Benjen shouted from across the large space.

**********

Sandor and Benjen stood away from the salt circle, Sandor to the south and Benjen to the east, each holding weapons that would supposedly work on ghosts. They had tested the tire iron on Sansa, and found that it did indeed burn her, so at least they had that. The salt circle had also worked to prevent Sansa from getting to Alyssa, which made the younger girl pout. Benjen had left the canister of salt inside the circle with her, just in case. 

Sansa stood in front of Alyssa, her head bowed as if in prayer. She had explained that she could sometimes feel the other force, and hoped that she could call it to her with her newfound strength.

They waited there in silence for nearly half an hour.

"I don't think it's working," Sandor whispered to Benjen over the headsets Benjen had borrowed from the station.

_ "Give it time," _ the man whispered back.  _ "We'll give up when Sansa says to. She's the only one who can do this, so… unless she deems it hopeless, we stay here." _

Sandor looked up at the windows in the roof. The sun had set long ago, and he could see the clouds and the few stars that were strong enough to make it past the light pollution of the city. Then he noticed the ringing in his ears. "The fuck…" 

"It's coming," Sansa said, lifting her head. "It was farther away than I expected, in the north. I wonder…" 

The glass from the windows above them shattered as a howling filled the air. A dark, hooded figure descended, fabric billowing and flowing like a river around it.  _ "Who dares to summon me?!" _ the figure hissed.

"I do," Sansa said, standing tall in between the figure and Alyssa. The dark figure, while intimidating, was shorter than Sansa, and she held herself as a queen would, not flinching at the newcomer. "I command you, release this girl from your hold."

The figure tilted its head.  _ "And who are you to command me?" _

Sansa stamped her foot on the ground, sending tremors throughout the building. "I am Sansa of House Stark, blood of the First Men, with the magic of the Children of the Forest coursing through me and  _ I command you to release her." _

The figure tilted its head in the other direction.  _ "I do not recognize the power of House Stark," _ the figure hissed.  _ "Daughter or not." _

"Daughter?" Sansa asked, faltering slightly. "Wait…  _ Mother?!" _

The figure pulled its hood back to reveal the grey skinned, rotting corpse of Catelyn Stark. The blood she had smeared on her face before her death was like a demon mask now and her eyes were completely white.  _ "It has been a long time, daughter. I am Lady Stoneheart now." _

"You were the other force in the curse??" Sansa asked. "But how?! You died before--"

_ "Do not tell me what you think to be true! It may have been your power that fueled the curse, but it was MY curse. It was MY blood, the blood of House Whent, that gave power to you, not the Starks." _

"What?" Sandor whispered. "But… Children of the Forest…" 

_ "It's never exactly been proven, you know," _ Benjen whispered back.  _ "Though it does make sense, since the children who have the strongest resemblance to Cat are the ones who have the extraordinary powers." _

"I see…" Sandor said, but he was still confused.

"This girl is innocent!" Sansa exclaimed, trying to bring her mother around to her line of thinking. "She wasn't even alive when those things happened to us!"

_ "She willingly took the curse upon herself!" _ Lady Stoneheart said, looking down on Alyssa, who cowered behind Sansa.

"She did not know!! She loves her uncle! Loves me! She thought… She thought it would mean we'd all be together…" Sansa trailed off. "Please, Mother, she made a mistake. We've all made mistakes.  _ Please… _ don't make her pay for mine." 

Lady Stoneheart scoffed.  _ "She will die. As will they all. Four days." _

"No!" Sandor shouted, leaping out from his hiding space. 

Sansa whirled around. "Sandor! Get back!"

_ "You!" _ Lady Stoneheart snarled.

"Yeah, it's me, asshole," Sandor snarled back. "I escaped your curse, and you're going to tell us how Alyssa can escape it as well!"

_ "You found the loophole…" _ Lady Stoneheart said, moving toward him slowly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Benjen circling around. The dead woman hadn't noticed him, and Sandor prayed to whoever was listening that her focus stayed on him. They had agreed beforehand that if the other force wouldn't release Alyssa, Benjen was to get her out of there and away from it.  _ "I will not be telling you, even if it helps me. She will die, as you should have." _

"Mother!" Sansa got in between Sandor and Lady Stoneheart. Alyssa was all but forgotten to the angry spirit. "What happened to you? You are not the loving mother I remember from my childhood… I went through horrible, horrible things, but I at least still feel guilty over the innocents that have been sacrificed. I try to make it as painless as possible for them, but you… you would sacrifice a girl whose most dreadful sin is saying a bad word? You are _not_ my mother… you are something else now…" 

_ "I am what HE made me to be, the one who ruined me, ruined all of us!" _ Lady Stoneheart said.  _ "And I will not rest until the entirety of those that hurt me and mine are burning in all seven hells, no matter who gets in my way!" _

"She is mine!" Sansa yelled, finally losing her temper. "You will not claim her!"

_ "I'd like to see you try and stop me." _ The hatred in her voice chilled Sandor down to his very soul.

"Take me instead," he said suddenly. "Leave Alyssa alone… and take me…" 

"Sandor, no!" Sansa said, whirling around to face him. "Don't say that!"

_ "I will take you **and** the girl!" _ Lady Stoneheart cried gleefully.  _ "Fool!" _

"Sandor, run!"

_ “No!” _ Lady Stoneheart hissed.  _ “You escaped me once! Not AGAIN!!” _ She shrieked as she lunged for Sandor, sinking her claws into him. Cold fear filled his body. 

“Mother! No!!” Sansa grabbed Lady Stoneheart, but Sandor knew it was useless. His life was slowly draining out of him. “Mother!!!” Sansa screamed. "Stop!!! PLEASE!!"

Sandor started to feel light, like he was floating. Another set of claws sunk into him from behind. 

_ He’s mine he’s mine he’s mine. _ He heard it chanted over and over as he was pulled to the other side of the veil. One final sigh of relief was heard.  _ You are mine, as I am yours, Sandor. _


	11. Epilogue

**After midnight on Friday**

Alyssa couldn't sleep. Great Uncle Benjen had taken her from the warehouse, leaving Uncle Sandor and Aunt Sansa to deal with Grandmother Stoneheart. Her Aunt Alayna didn't know what they were doing, so she was staying with Benjen and his wife Meera for the night. Meera didn't know what was going on either, but she liked Sandor and had spoiled Alyssa with meatloaf and smashed potatoes for dinner. Now she was lying in bed, in Benjen and Meera's guest bedroom, unable to sleep because she kept thinking about the mean witch, Sansa, and Sandor.

Alyssa knew the witch was a bad woman, but it was because she was angry that bad things had happened to her, so she didn't blame her for being so mean and angry. Not completely, anyway. Benjen was sitting with her, a shotgun filled with rock salt in his hands. He had been told that that would slow down the ghost witch lady. "She's gonna kill unca, isn't she?" Alyssa asked Benjen.

"That's…" He sighed heavily. "She might. 

"But Sansa will protect him," Alyssa said. "She loves him. She won't--"

"Sweetheart, I hate to say this, but there's a chance Sansa isn't strong enough to protect him from Catelyn. If that's the case…" Benjen was tense. "How are you so calm about this?"

Alyssa shrugged. "Unca was able to escape. The witch said so, that he found a lookhole, remember? Right before we left."

"A loophole. You're right. She did say that. So… he did something different than the other people who fell to the curse, but what?" He looked over at her. "You're a smart girl, and I bet you have an excellent memory. Can you tell me what your uncle went through this past week?"

It wasn't like she was going to be sleeping any time soon, so Alyssa sat up in bed. "Hmm… well, let's see… Unca started talking to auntie Layna about this project he was working on while he was making chalupas for me… oh, wait, I forgot. Before that happened, that mean man came over to watch the video."

Benjen frowned. "What mean man?"

Alyssa shrugged. "I don't know him very well. He's sorta a friend of unca, but he's always saying stuff that sounds nice but really isn't. He watched the video on… Thursday, I think, and unca came into my room this evening, demanding to see Sansa, and when she appeared, he told her that the man had still died."

"So… Sandor showed it to someone else…" 

"Oh, and he made a copy for that man. Actually, it was the copy that I watched. I think it's still in the video player at home."

"He… made a copy…" Benjen said, "and showed it to someone else…" 

Alayna looked to the space at the foot of her bed. "Unca! Auntie Sansa!" she cried out.

**********

**Day 10, Saturday**

“Ok… then, press this button here,” Beric showed the girl. Ramsay was getting twitchy watching his bitch get all fatherly with Clegane’s niece. Captain Stark was with Alayna in the main bullpen area. He had driven the two Cleganes to see Ramsay and Beric at the newsroom. Alayna thought that she was just there to clear out Sandor's desk, but there was another plan in motion. “And this one here, at the same time. Once it’s done, press this button, and I’ll be able to create a video that will save on a USB drive.”

The girl looked to her left, her head tilted like she was listening to someone. “I can do it. The creating the video on a USB, I mean,” she said. “I want to make sure no one else sees it.  _ They _ don’t want anyone else to see it.” Ramsay felt a chill at her words and looked at the empty space she had been listening to. He gave a slight nod in that direction.

“Oh, but it’s a bit complicated…” Beric began to protest.

“I’ll set it up for her,” Ramsay offered, though it went against the grain to do it. “All she has to do is insert the drive and press the process button. It'll be better this way.” Beric was befuddled, but nodded. 

**********

**Day 12, Monday**

“You sure you wanna go in alone?” Ramsay asked her. Alyssa sighed. They were standing in the lobby of M.A.R.L., waiting for an elevator. Alyssa had asked him to drive her, and had told her guardian that he was a trusted babysitter her uncle had used. Ramsay was annoyed that the brat seemed to like him better than Captain Stark. He was even more annoyed that her aunt had actually trusted him to do the job. Alyssa had been lucky that she had a holiday from school, otherwise she would have had to explain a lot of things to her guardian.

_ “Yeeeeesssss. _ I mean, I’m just gonna deliver the USB drive, then the curse transfers to the bad man and unca and auntie Sansa will go after him.” She must have sounded more put out than she realized, because Ramsay suddenly knelt down in front of her, a look of concern on his face.

“Hey. You know you couldn’t have joined them, even if they fulfilled the curse, right?” he asked in a low voice. Alyssa stuck out her bottom lip, ready to protest. “No, you freak. The only reason your uncle was able to join his ghost girlfriend was because of the bond they shared, and even then, it could have gone a lot worse. They got  _ lucky. _ And… you’d probably be missed. Your aunt. The living one, I mean. Seems like she likes you or something. Dunno why, I mean, look at that face. Snot and germs… but there’s no accounting for taste, I suppose.” Ramsay gave her a disapproving look, which made her smile.

“Fine. At least giving the curse to the bad man will make them happy."

**********

“They that sow horror shall harvest terror…” the girl said. Petyr frowned at her. “Something my auntie told me once. You should watch this, it was made especially for you by the one you  _ love. _ A Catelyn Stark? She created this for you."  

His mind immediately went to the days before Catelyn had gone insane, and he felt himself becoming hard under his slacks, remembering how good she had felt beneath him. It had taken just the right mixture of medications to make her compliant  _ and _ somewhat lucid, and  _ maybe _ she had moaned for Ned and not him, but  _ he _ had been the one to give her the last baby, not that self righteous husband of hers, even if it had ultimately cost her her life. “Right, so off you go. Goodbye, little girl.” She nodded and left his office. “Now… what could my darling have left me?” he said happily to himself, inserting the USB drive into his computer. The video started almost immediately, a strange humming sound coming over his speakers, and a bright ring of light against a dark background. A feeling of dread crept upon him, and he moved to stop the video, his instincts screaming at him that it was a bad idea and  _ why _ did he believe a little girl who said it was from his precious Cat who had been dead for  _ years-- _

He felt an ice cold pressure on his hand and on his head, holding him in place, another hand placed over his mouth to stop him from screaming like he desperately wanted to. Once the video was over, the hands released him. He tried to grab the USB, but his hand stopped in mid air. 

"What…?" He tried again with the same result.  _ "No!" _ The phone rang, startling him from his panic.

His hands moved on their own, though he tried to fight it. It felt like there were two sets of hands guiding his as he answered the phone.  _ "Seven days, Petyr," _ a harsh voice hissed.  _ "I said I'd see you again. By the blood of my blood, I swore it. Until then, sweetling." _ Baelish slammed the phone down to stop the horrible laughter that could be heard from the phone speaker.

He tried to grab the USB again, but his hands were forced to open an email, address it to the paranormal studies department, and attached a copy of the video. 

**********

"This place…" Sandor said. They were standing in the cabin, or rather, what was left of it. The police tape had fallen down in the wind. "Will we be here for a while?"

"We can leave now," Sansa said, taking his hand. "We have a target, we have our freedom. For the moment, anyway. Should have known the curse was still in effect when I was able to stay with Allie…" She sighed. "I had hoped that since my physical body was freed, my spirit would be as well, that I could watch over you two in peace. I suppose, it might still be true, though, I can't really test that theory until we no longer have a target, now that I think about it. I always hated this place. So lonely."

"You got me now."

She smiled. "That's true." She took a deep breath, despite not needing to breathe. "I saw you… so very long ago…" 

"What do you mean?" He let her lead him outside to stand in the bright sunshine. 

"I'm remembering more from before I died. It's easier to make sense of my memories now, even the ones from when I was insane." 

"Like…?" 

"Like…" she said shyly, "I saw a future that I could have had, if I hadn't been committed to the asylum, I mean. You were there." 

"I was?" 

Sansa hugged him, nuzzling his chest. "Yes. You were… hurt, from the war, I think, when we met in that future, but on the mend. I was volunteering in the hospital you were at, because of Uncle Benjen."

He stared at her. "That's… that's how I met him. He was going through this phase, he had killed a man while on duty, completely by the books, but it messed with his head, so he was volunteering at the hospital as a penance."

"Yeah… in that timeline, he introduced us. I helped you as you continued to heal." She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. "We fell in love. You were good to me, as I was to you. We had a pregnancy scare, when I was only a week away from turning eighteen. You didn't run from me, from our baby. You asked me to marry you, as soon as I was legal to marry without my parents consent, if they didn't give it. They were  _ pissed," _ she said with a laugh. "But we didn't care. We were in love. We ran away together to marry in Braavos, Robb even came as a witness! But when we got there…" She trailed off. 

Sandor lifted her chin and kissed her gently."What happened then?"

She shook her head and gave him a smile. "The scare was just that… it turned out to be a false positive. We found out right before we were going to walk down the aisle. I asked you if you wanted to change your mind, no harm, no foul."

"Ah… can I guess what I said to that?" She nodded, grinning at him. "I probably said something along the lines of 'fuck no, I got you this far, we're getting married and I'll just put a pup in you as soon as I can if it makes you happy'."

"Spot on," she said. "But… we never had a baby of our own."

"Oh… I'm sorry--"

"No, don't be. We had Allie."

He blinked. "What?"

"In that timeline, Gregor and Walda… they still passed away in a car crash, and Allie came to live with us. We raised her as our own, adopted her legally and everything. She grew up, got married, gave us grandkids…"

Sandor nuzzled her neck. "Sounds nice. I'm sorry we didn't have it."

"We did, just… not in this timeline." She smiled at him. "In this one… well, we'll have to make our own happiness. Make up for what my mother and brother lost."

"By directing your mother's wrath on the ones who actually deserve it, and wreaking terrible, horrible vengeance upon those that wronged you and your family," he said with a chuckle. "I can get behind that. Oh, here comes Merry."

They both turned to see the car driving down the road to the wrecked cabin. Merry got out, sighing heavily as she surveyed the area. "Karl, I think we're just going to have to raze the entire thing. Darn place is cursed, I tell you."

A redheaded man stepped out of the other side of the vehicle. "I don't remember this place…" he said slowly. Sandor heard Sansa gasp beside him. "But have I been here before? It seems really familiar…" 

"Not that I know of," Merry said, placing her hands on her hips. "I really hate this cabin."

_ "Robb!" _ Sansa whispered. The redheaded man turned to look at them.

"Oh, hello. Who are you?" he asked. 

"Karl, who are you talking to?" Merry asked him, going to his side.

"Who…?" Karl, or Robb, looked at Merry, then back at Sansa. His eyes flashed with sudden recognition. "Oh… um… no one, my love. I thought I saw someone. Think I'm just a bit tired. Why don't you go inside and check the foundation? I just need a bit of air for a minute."

"Of course." Merry kissed his cheek and carefully went inside the building.

"I remember you…" the man said to Sansa. "But… I also don't…" 

"Robb! It's me, Sansa… your little sister." She reached out her hand, but then pulled it back before she touched him. "You don't remember?"

"Sansa… Robb…" he said. "Oh… I feel like… I should know those names… I'm… I'm Robb?"

"I thought you were Karl?" Sandor asked. "I'm Sandor, by the way."

Robb, or Karl, nodded. "Nice to meet you. Yes, I'm Karl. I mean, that's what Merry calls me. She found me many years ago, wandering in the woods. I was nearly dead. I had hit my head on a rock," he pointed to a scar on his forehead, half hidden by his hair, "Plus I had been shot. I had been wandering through the woods for who knew how long, feverish, incoherent… and she nursed me back to health. She told me that I kept rambling about a well, and finding someone I left behind, but… once I was well enough again, I couldn't remember my name or really anything. I've been here with her ever since."

"Do you… like it here?" Sansa asked. "Are you happy?"

He smiled, and Sandor was struck by how much it looked like Sansa's smile. "Very happy. Merry is my best friend, love of my life. Oh! And she's pregnant. We just found out. We're going to get married soon, too. I wanted to do it sooner, but she didn't want to upset her father. Now, she says she can't worry about what her father thinks, she has to save all her worry for the baby." He laughed, but then his face turned somber. "I'm sorry I don't remember you."

Sansa shook her head, wiping away tears from her cheek and smiling at him. "No! No, don't be sorry. Be happy. Live, and laugh, and love. That's all I ever wanted for us, and now… Now we both have a chance." She held onto Sandor's hand and looked up at him lovingly.

Karl, or Robb, gave her kind smile. "You kind of look like me, just younger, and female."

Sansa burst out laughing. "I suppose I do."

"Oh, wait, so, you know who I am? Like… do I have a family?" he asked.

"Oh!" Sansa exclaimed. "Yes! Yes, you do! We have a little sister, Arya, and two younger brothers, Bran and Rickon. Our father, his name is Ned Stark, and we have an uncle, Benjen Stark, and an aunt Lyanna, their younger sister, oh! And a cousin, his name is Jon. They'll be happy to see you."

"I'll go find them," Robb promised. "But what about you? I assume… I assume that since I can see you and Merry can't… you're dead?"

"Yeah, a bit," Sandor said. "But don't worry about us. We're making sure that the bad people don't win. Your mother, too, actually."

Robb laughed. "I don't really understand, but ok. Will I see you again?"

"I don't know," Sansa said. "I hope so. So much is changing, but you can always try to find us here, if nothing else."

Robb nodded. "Ok. I'll do that. Oh, Merry's coming back out." He fell silent as Merry came back to the car. "How's it looking?"

"Terrible. Did you know there's a well under that cabin? I thought the police were pulling my leg with that. I can't believe my father approved of building the cabin just right over it!" They got in the car, Merry still complaining about her father's past incompetence with the business. Robb smiled and waved at Sansa and Sandor before they drove off.

"So… he's alive," Sandor said.

"I helped him escape…" Sansa murmured. 

"Another returned memory?"

She nodded. "How could I forget that? All this time… I must have suppressed that particular memory or… I don't know, lost it in the jumble. I suspect I'll be having a lot more memories come to light as we go on... As for this, I just assumed he was dead, but now that I've seen him, I remember. We could hear the deconstruction of the Eyrie building above us. We yelled and yelled, but our voices were overpowered by the machinery. It was only a few days. I suppose Baelish paid a pretty penny to get it done quickly. When it was done, the cover of the well was gone, but, by then, we had no voice to call out with, and no one could see us with how far down we were. We gave up on waiting for help, and decided to try and climb up ourselves. The walls… they were too slippery with moss. Robb was stronger than me, even with the gunshot wound, so I helped push him up high enough to reach the stones that weren't wet. He climbed out, promised to bring back help, but I never saw him again… I died thinking my brother abandoned me, but he  _ would _ have come back, if he hadn't hit his head…" She sighed happily. "It is such a relief to know that!"

Sandor kissed her forehead. "You'll see him again."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. I have a good feeling about it," he said. "Now, since we have our freedom, how about we go visit Alyssa? We've got some time before we get to go haunt Baelish."

Sansa nodded, and in a silent poof, they disappeared from the campgrounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the ride, and aren't too bummed out by the fact that they're dead.


End file.
